Changing the lens you look through

There’s a particular look that appears on someone’s face during Battle of the Barristers. It usually arrives after they’ve spent a considerable amount of time being absolutely certain.

Then somebody says something they haven’t considered.

They pause, perhaps even narrow their eyes. You can practically hear the internal argument taking place: That can’t be right. Although… actually… oh, that’s annoying.

A couple of the cases I use are in memorable and in the public eye. There are numerous documentaries about them, which can make people feel informed about the perpetrator before they walk into my makeshift courtroom.

They forget that bias is inherent in many, if not all, of the things they’ve watched or read prior.

I confess that I’m also a little mischievous at this point; if I know they have a predetermined bias, I place them on the opposite side of their argument.

This is one of my favourite parts of Battle of the Barristers. Not because someone is proved wrong, but because changing your mind can be such a surprisingly enjoyable experience when it happens in the right setting – it’s actually a gift, and a wonderful skill to develop. I so enjoy seeing that moment of astonishment when those taking part, who were so certain about their stance before looking at the case more objectively, see things from a completely different angle.

People taking part in a Battle of the Barristers experience expect to examine a case and perhaps enjoy the drama of playing a barrister. They might imagine themselves delivering an impressive closing speech (possibly with rather more flair than would be tolerated in an actual British courtroom). What they don’t necessarily expect is to become caught up in another person’s argument and feel their own certainty beginning to wobble.

The person who changes the room may not be the most confident speaker or the one who’s been talking the longest. Sometimes it’s someone who’s been sitting back, listening to everyone else whilst turning the information over in their mind.

When they finally speak, they notice something that the rest of the group has overlooked. Perhaps they connect two details in a different way or find one sentence that makes everybody stop. Suddenly, the person who appeared to be saying very little has altered the direction of the whole discussion.

That was important when I created Battle of the Barristers. Introverts are often expected to participate in environments designed around extroverted behaviour. The quickest response receives the most attention, while the person who needs time to process what they’ve heard can find that the conversation has already moved on. It’s easy to mistake speed for ability when the two aren’t the same thing.

Battle of the Barristers gives people something definite to work with and a genuine reason to listen to one another. Nobody has to make small talk or find a clever way to enter a conversation that’s already in full flow. There’s a case in front of them and an argument taking shape. Their contribution has somewhere to go.

A role can also offer a peculiar kind of freedom. Someone who’d never describe themselves as a public speaker can become unexpectedly forceful when they’re speaking on behalf of their fictional client. They’re not standing up to announce their own brilliance to the room; they’re standing up because there’s a case to be made. The focus moves away from how they appear and towards what they have to say.

Participants can surprise themselves as much as they surprise everyone else. Before long, they’re not merely taking part but shaping the argument. The version of themselves who ‘doesn’t do this sort of thing’ has apparently taken a brief leave of absence.

As the arguments develop, people begin looking again at what they thought they knew. A detail that seemed insignificant starts to matter, or something they’d relied upon feels less convincing. That’s part of the fun. Nobody is required to cling to their first impression simply because they expressed it with confidence. They can be persuaded, become uncertain, or find themselves occupying the uncomfortable territory between two convincing arguments.

The room rarely ends up where I expect it to. As I typically play the judge, I bring the proceedings to a close, but the interesting part isn’t simply which side has won. It’s seeing who found their voice along the way and whose contribution changed the temperature in the room.

By then, any prior certainty has often softened into something much more enjoyable. People go over the moments that caught them out and admit where their loyalties shifted. There’s usually some affectionate dispute before everyone heads home.

Battle of the Barristers gives people room to become more animated than they expected and to care far more about a fictional case than they’d planned. It lets them try on a different voice without asking them to become a different person.

But that moment, that spark when I can see someone’s mind has changed, that’s what pushed me to do more of this work. We should open our minds to other opinions and points of view - especially given that we’re fed so many ideas via AI, the elite, the media and political parties.

Self-development gurus will tell you: growth will never stem from a fixed mindset. An open mind prepared to investigate, interpret and change is key.