Why Do People With Speech Impediments Become Lawyers?

I don't know a lot about what it takes to be a lawyer, but I do know that you need to speak quite a bit.  This leads me to the question first posed by The Martha, the clerk in our courtroom.  (I'll explain in a later post about her name.)  After yet another appearance by an attorney with a serious speech problem that left us all wondering at about 50% of what he just said, The Martha asked "Why do people with speech impediments become lawyers?"  Good question.  I didn't have an answer to that, but I did start to notice that the percentage of people with speech impediments is higher in the courtroom.  I wonder if these people went into law hoping their speech impediment would get better with practice and training.   Maybe they actually used to be worse than they are.

The types of speech problems I hear in the courtroom include low mumblers, regular mumblers, make-no-sense fast talkers, false starters, and weird cadence speakers.  I have to say of all these types of speakers, the weird cadence speakers are the worst.  I can usually ask mumblers to speak up, tell fast talkers to slow down, and I just write the false starters with dashes and hope they order a transcript to see how terrible they speak.  But the weird cadence speakers are really a challenge because they're actually saying the right words, but just in such a strange rhythm that I don't get what they're saying until they've finished. 

I used to work as a contract reporter in Bankruptcy Court and there was an attorney who appeared somewhat regularly there.  He said "um" all the time, and I mean All The Time.  A typical sentence for him would be "Um, the court, um, directed, um, me, um, to send all, um, other parties, um, a copy of the, um, filing.  Normally I wouldn't put in all the "ums" because it's more of a sound than a word, and also because, quite frankly, it was just more work for me.  But this particular attorney was very mean to me, and other reporters too, which meant  that I just had to put in all his "ums" one time.  After getting that transcript he didn't speak any better, but I felt a little better. 

I am a voice person.  If someone has a great voice, I think more highly of them.  If they say smart things, I really like them.   Conversely, if someone has a bad voice, nasally or annoying in some fashion, I tend to like them less.  I'm lucky because my judge, Judge Jack, has a great voice.  He's also very smart.  When you make a living listening to people speak, it makes for an easy day when the person you listen to most has a pleasant speaking voice and says smart things.  He does speak pretty fast at times though.  I've clocked him at 360 words per minute!  But that's okay because he usually only does that with phrases he says all the time and I know what he's about to say.  I also have abbreviations for phrases he uses all the time so I can keep up with him pretty well.

I worked for the District Attorney's Office for about nine months.  There was one assistant district attorney there who I admired from afar.  He wasn't particularly good looking, but he had a great, and I mean a great voice.  He was also very smart, professional and had the reputation of being a wonderul guy to work for.  On one of the last days I worked there I found myself in the elevator alone with him.  I screwed up my courage and told him that it was a pleasure to work with him because he had such a great voice.  He was so stunned to receive the compliment that it made me think that he probably rarely ever got compliments, even though he was very deserving of them.

So the bottom line in this post, I guess, is be a bad speaker, and feel the wrath of the reporter; be a good speaker and feel the love.