The Importance of Body Language

This week, I once again found myself at the Family Court at Brisbane helping clients with a case. On this particular day, the case was stood down to start mid morning. While waiting outside the courtroom, I had a good view across the inside of level 2 of the court building where there were a number of other courts in session and lots of people.

As I waited, I observed solicitors, barristers and various parties scattered across the waiting areas outside of each court room, liaising and negotiating, trying to narrow or resolve issues before they were called in to be heard. I have always been fascinated by the role body language has to play in any given “transaction”. I started to pay close attention to this from about the age of 14 or 15 when I worked in a retail fruit shop after school and on weekends. I dealt with thousands of people in this role fielding enquires as simple as cutting a cabbage in half through to dealing with complaints. It gave me a solid grounding into the bearing emotion had on body language, and by observing this, how I could then best respond to the transaction or resolving the problem at hand.

Outside the various court rooms, I observed some engaging in what I view as quite defensive body language including crossed arms, crossed legs, hands on hips and barrier type behaviour. I also observed quite a bit of open body language including appropriate posture, direct-on talking (sitting and standing) open palms, relaxed shoulders, removing objects and engaged leaning in.

I am by no means an expert on body language. Despite this, we all engage in, and interpret body language differently. I think we probably do this often not knowing we are doing it. We all have lived experiences in transacting with others which has some bearing on this. While some may not agree, I still consider the ability to read the room a critical skill for lawyers like myself that appear in court and help people in what are often complex and lengthy in person negotiations. Paying close attention to body language can provide a quick an accurate assessment to the emotions which may involved. From here, a decision can then be made on how to best respond in an attempt to resolve the issue at hand.