Game Reps

Not all repetitions are equal, but all are important.

My friend Miller Leonard consistently mentions the importance of reps for law students and young lawyers.

Reps = greater proficiency.

This is true in football, where teams practice plays, units practice responsibilities, and players practice individual techniques over and over again. This is necessary to create muscle memory so the amount of thinking is reduced during an actual game, which makes the players’ reaction times faster.

But no amount of practice and even “game situation” scrimmages or preseason game can prepare one for an actual game like game reps obtained through experience.

This is especially true for quarterbacks. I’ve been playing or coaching football pretty much my whole life. My 2 favorite attributes for quarterbacking are: 1) Mental processing speed, and 2) Accuracy.

Game speed reps cannot be simulated in practice or even scrimmages or preseason games. The intensity isn’t the same. The speed of the game isn’t the same. The conditions and pressure are not the same.

This is also true for trial lawyers. As a baseline matter, lawyers must have adequate training and should regularly avail themselves of opportunities in moot courts and simulated trial situations. Those things do help, and we are ready to help you with trial advocacy training and consultancy needs. Contact us.

But if training and moot courts are valuable silver, actual trial reps are gold. If you are a law student or young lawyer, get into the courtroom for live cases. Handle hearings. Try cases. Get game reps.

In 2022, my son Matthew Neff, EIT had been out of football for 3 years, after having been a star QB. His greatest attribute among many had always been his mental processing. He was drafted into a spring pro football developmental league and thrown into action after 8 practices. 8. He shared the QB job with a guy who had been playing pro football overseas for several years.

He came off the field after a game one time and said, “Dad, I’m not seeing it like I used to.”

I said, “Son, be patient. It takes a lot of game reps to get it back. 8 practices and part time work on the game field isn’t enough.” He still finished 2nd in the East Coast league in passer rating.

In 2017, I had my 1st trial in 5 years after having been overseas. I’d been training others on trial advocacy, but in the courtroom when the case started, I was feeling sluggish and out of practice. It’s one thing to technically know how to do something; it’s something else to perform under pressure in a fast-moving environment that calls on muscle memory. I was out of practice; I hadn't had any game reps for a long time.

Pic: Vid of one of Matthew’s 1st throws in semi-pro game action after 3 years away. You see a successful completion; I see a QB who felt he needed to move from the pocket to buy some time so he could “see” what he needed to see.