Someone at my office told me that she wished she had my confidence. I didn�t have the heart to tell her that sometimes that confidence is an act. I learned long ago that it is often better to be gloriously wrong than tentatively right�as long as you are not wrong too often. Some of my confidence therefore is a projection, an act, not an emotion. Over the years, however, I�ve discovered that the Jewish sages who advised one to act in hopes the feelings would follow were on to something. As I learned to act more confident, I became more confident.

Acting confident is essential when dealing with a lot of men professionally. Projecting confidence is a type of armor. While women speaking among women often soften their language and thereby hope to inspire cooperation, women who speak that way in the presence of men tend to be taken at face value. If I am in a group of women and I say, �Perhaps we should consider X,� the women in the room know that I am saying that we should consider X. The perhaps is merely a polite invitation intended to make a collaborative we. If I�m with men, the �perhaps� is taken as a signal that I am not sure of my ground. If I�m with men, there tends to be a one-up, one-down philosophy and I�ve just put myself down.

There are more women lawyers who do criminal defense work now then there were when I started but it still is largely a man�s world. Certainly, it�s a man�s world when one considers who my clients are. I have an occasional woman client but the women are few and far between. If I want a client to consider me competent, I have to talk male language.

Occasionally, I exercise my option to talk female, even at work. Used sparingly, female talk can diffuse a heated situation with some clients and an occasional male co-worker. Even playing sweet eccentric has its place, but only if it follows a confident, competent showing and never with a client who is cognitively limited.

Confidentially, even if I never felt confidence, I would have to behave as if I did just to survive in my job. I�ve seen enough people come and go to know that the clients and the system will eat lawyers alive if they can�t learn to project confidence. If you walk around a prison or a courthouse with your nonverbal communication saying, �Kick me,� someone will kick you�and the judges will do it as fast or faster than inmates. The tentative new attorneys toughen up fast or they disappear.

Confidence therefore, or a reasonable facsimile of it, is a necessary accessory. I don�t leave home without it.

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