Why finding your voice matters! Understanding how to use your voice (and how others use theirs) can make you a more effective lawyer and person. 

Matthew launches this ‘legal retreat like no other’ with a few unexpected questions. In a room full of legal professions, he asks who of the room have done singing lessons, and to my surprise, a huge number of hands are launched into their air.

With some common ground there, Matthew begins to introduce himself. Despite being from Ipswich (where Matthew says his heart still belongs) he learned from a young age that he was a little different from his fellow Ipswich school peers. While they adorned themselves in rugby uniforms, Matthew was interested in a different type of costume.

From Jean Valjean to the Sun God with gold painted nipples, Matthew shows us some never-before seen pictures of himself as young musical theatre extraordinaire.

We are given a behind the scenes look at Matthew Hickey’s music career, which somehow consists of pissing off a stage of Eurovision contestants, scaling the stairs at the famous Abbey Road Recording Studio, and having his face appear on an olive oil bottle – I mean, the guy is a proper big deal.

Drawing the similarities between his life in the music industry and now his life in law, we are taken on his journey from Ipswich schoolboy to Eurovision star. As a man who once wore musical theatre costumes and now appears in barristers’ robes – Matthew credits his journey to finding his voice.

As lawyers, we focus heavily on written work and style. We spend hours editing our correspondence, emails – you name it and we will scrutinise over it – but sometimes we lose sight when it comes to spoken work and even more challengingly, verbal style.

Verbal style consists of two aspects – the mental and the physical. What are we trying to communicate (the intention) and almost more importantly, how are we trying to communicate it (the manifestation).

“When intention matches manifestation, we find effective communication.”

Matthew acknowledges that this is something that requires purposeful thought and unfortunately society does not place a great deal of importance on it.

“Learning to communicate is like learning how to sing”. Thankfully, we have the man himself here today to teach a room full of lawyers how to get a little musical.

When we turn our minds to who we are speaking to, we make an active choice to connect the intention with the manifestation. Like singers, we manipulate our breath to convey not only the content of our message, but the pitch, rhythm, and timbre that speaks much louder than the words we use.  

For a second, as Matthew explains the technical aspects of singing, he loses me. I’m not sure what my diaphragm feels like but as that thought enters my head, Matthew interprets it and has everyone standing, heads between our legs, breathing with our diaphragms like professionals.  As people begin to feel the muscles used to push out air and get a sense of their breath flowing through their lungs, Matthew reminds us that we are all capable of the basic art of expressing ourselves.