For most trial lawyers, the courtroom is a place of logic, structure, and fact. But for Leigh E. Johnson, it is also a stage for human experience. A trial, in her view, is more than an exercise in persuasion. It is an unfolding drama, one where authenticity can be the decisive factor. Johnson has spent her career transforming how lawyers prepare, perform, and connect in that space. Her approach draws not only from legal training but from the emotionally rich world of psychodrama.
Johnson is not simply a trial lawyer or a consultant. She is a psychodramatist, a teacher, and a builder of emotional landscapes. Through her ventures: Trial Whisperer, Law Focus Groups, and Building The Case, she has made it her mission to help attorneys see beyond the facts and into the human story behind them.
What Is Psychodrama?
Psychodrama, a method developed by psychiatrist Jacob Moreno in the early 20th century, is a form of therapy that uses guided drama and role playing to explore personal issues. Participants act out moments from their lives to gain insight, release emotion, and reframe trauma. It is experiential, intense, and deeply revealing.
Leigh E. Johnson trained formally in psychodrama and integrated its core principles into her legal work. Where most trial consultants focus on evidence or strategy, Johnson focuses on the emotional energy of a case. She uses psychodrama to help lawyers understand their clients, uncover key emotional moments, and communicate with juries in a way that resonates on a human level.
Trial Preparation Through Action
In a typical courtroom setting, attorneys often rely on rote scripts, fixed narratives, and passive preparation. Johnson’s method turns that inside out. She begins by guiding lawyers through a reenactment of the case, allowing them to inhabit not only the client’s story but also their own.
Using role reversal, lawyers might step into the shoes of the defendant, the plaintiff, a witness, or even a juror. They explore feelings, motivations, and misunderstandings in real time. This process reveals truths that no document or deposition ever could. It uncovers bias, builds empathy, and helps attorneys find emotional anchors that juries are likely to connect with.
Johnson emphasizes that this is not theatre. It is a serious, disciplined practice aimed at finding clarity. By living the case through psychodrama, lawyers move beyond tactics and into the realm of genuine understanding. This is what she calls building the emotional blueprint of a trial.
The Role of Focus Groups
A cornerstone of Johnson’s methodology is the use of focus groups. But unlike conventional models that seek only to test responses or refine messaging, her focus groups are interactive and revealing. They involve reenactments, storytelling exercises, and group discussions that surface the jurors’ emotional responses, assumptions, and cultural filters.
Johnson has facilitated hundreds of these sessions. She studies how potential jurors respond not just to facts but to tone, pacing, and body language. These insights often lead to major revisions in case strategy. Sometimes a powerful legal point fails to land because it lacks emotional grounding. Other times, a small detail carries unexpected emotional weight.
Her clients often walk away from these sessions with a completely new understanding of their case. They learn not only what to say but how to say it with presence, empathy, and conviction.
Emotional Honesty and Ethos
Johnson’s teaching goes beyond method. It touches on identity and ethics. One of her most cited contributions to the book The Way of the Trial Lawyer: Beyond Technique is her chapter titled “Emotional Honesty and Ethos.” In it, she argues that juries are not just evaluating what the lawyer says but who the lawyer is.
In her view, authenticity is not optional. It is the most powerful tool in the courtroom. When lawyers try to perform a version of themselves that is polished but emotionally disconnected, jurors feel it. When they speak from a place of truth, even if that truth is uncomfortable or imperfect, it creates a bridge.
Through psychodrama, lawyers can access parts of themselves that are often hidden behind professional armor. They learn to be present, to feel deeply, and to channel those feelings into persuasive advocacy. Johnson describes this process as moving from performance to presence. It is a shift that changes not just the trial but the lawyer.
Teaching a New Generation
Johnson’s impact extends well beyond individual clients. Since 2010, she has been a faculty member at Gerry Spence’s Trial Lawyers College, where she teaches storytelling, psychodrama, and trial skills. She also lectures at the Death Penalty College and the Capital Defense College in Texas, helping lawyers prepare for some of the most emotionally complex cases in the justice system.
Her teaching is grounded in direct experience. She does not ask lawyers to embrace theory without seeing its real-world impact. Her workshops often begin with personal storytelling exercises. These stories, when shared in a group setting, foster trust and vulnerability—two qualities that are rare but vital in legal education.
Johnson also leads the Bay Area Trial Skills Group, where she provides volunteer coaching to both civil and criminal lawyers. Her commitment to mentorship and pro bono work is not symbolic. It is a consistent thread in her career. She understands that emotional intelligence in law is not just a skill but a service.
Building the Case
Her Building The Case book series takes her methods and codifies them into a usable framework for trial lawyers. These books are not filled with theory or legal jargon. They are practical, reflective, and grounded in stories from the field.
The first volume offers insights into how to develop a case narrative that speaks to both head and heart. The second focuses on capital and death penalty cases, where the emotional stakes are high and the room for error is small. Johnson walks readers through exercises, mindset shifts, and common traps, always returning to the central theme: that truth lives in story, and story lives in action.
A Lasting Contribution
In 2024, Johnson was awarded the Zerka Moreno Award by the American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama. The honor recognizes not just her mastery of psychodrama but her ability to bridge it with a seemingly unrelated domain: trial law.
What she has built is not simply a technique but a movement. One that invites lawyers to see themselves as more than advocates. She wants them to be explorers of emotion, facilitators of truth, and custodians of story.
Final thoughts
Leigh E. Johnson’s work reminds us that law is not abstract. It is about people, relationships, pain, and healing. Trials are not just about winning. They are about being heard, being seen, and telling a story that matters.
Through psychodrama, Johnson has given lawyers a way to rediscover the heart of their practice. She has shown that when we step into another’s shoes, literally and emotionally, we find the courage to speak not only with logic but with soul. That is the advantage of the psychodramatist. And it may well be the future of trial advocacy.