Two law students gazed at each other for a long moment in the middle of class, as their peers looked on.

"Why are you contesting this will," Amanda Kurecian demanded suddenly.

"Did you really think I wouldn't," Rocquael Gaines countered.

"What are you looking to get out of this?"

"How much can I get?"

The dispute was pure stagecraft, and the two rising 3Ls had just nailed an exercise that required them to spontaneously create a narrative just by asking questions.

The task was part of Improvisation for Lawyers, a class that provides agility training for the thrust-and-parry of trial advocacy.

Taught by actress and comedienne Sharon Geller, the class combines elements of theater, psychology and rhetoric - all aimed at enabling students to shine in the courtroom or at the negotiating table, when the pressures of a trial or a deal are upon them.

"Whether you're interested in developing a rapport with a client, convincing the jury of your facts or evoking a moving closing argument, improvisational skills can help you," Geller said.

Geller has performed and taught improvisation for 20 years, appearing on stage, in television programs including "Saturday Night Live" and "Sex and the City" and in films that include "Philadelphia" and "The Sixth Sense." She has also done extensive training in the corporate world, where demand is high among attorneys.

"Improv can help litigators improve their courtroom presence and sharpen their ability to deal with the unexpected," Geller said.

In class, students abandon ordinary means of communicating: interacting through questions, adopting an air of confidence while discussing an unfamiliar idea or pivoting between sides of an argument in mid-thought.

In the exercise "Pro/Con," student Andrew Good began talking about the joys of dog ownership.

"They're really your best friend," Good said. "They have boundless energy to go running along with you -"

With the sound of Geller's hand-clap, Good took the opposite view.

"But then they drag you down the street, and your arms are bloodied -" Clap! "But that makes you stronger, so you're not so easily injured."

Exhorting Good to avoid the word, "but," Geller acknowledged that toggling between viewpoints is a challenge.

"We’re retraining your brain to think in a different way,” she said, adding that it helps litigators enormously when they can simultaneously see an argument’s positive and negative points.

To melt inhibitions, Geller begins classes with silly recitations like "red leather, yellow leather" or "you know you need unique New York."

One class closed with a lightning round exercise called “185,” which features word play that helps students think and solve problems quickly.  In the exercise, students took turns improvising a joke about 185 members of a certain group being refused service in a bar.

"One hundred eighty-five doctors walk into a bar," Heather Starek said, following the prescribed set-up. "The bartender says, 'I’m terribly sorry, but we don’t serve doctors.' And the doctor says, 'Could you at least give it a shot?'

Ba-dum-bum.