Andrew Caple-Shaw

Andrew Caple-Shaw is the managing partner of ACT of Communication, the nation’s oldest and most established trial consulting firm specializing in courtroom communication and witness preparation.  In his 38 years as a professional actor, his credits include shows like The West Wing, Dexter, and NCIS. He also works in film and still does live theater when he can. His team at ACT, staffed by protégés of courtroom skills icon Katherine James, is responsible for over $15 billion worth of trial verdicts in single-plaintiff or single-family cases over the past decade, as well as countless more in settlements, class cases, and non-injury matters.

A native of Fort Worth, Texas, Andrew holds a B.A., magna cum laude, from Occidental College, where he was a Rhodes Scholar Finalist and played tight end. Acting through college, he was inducted into the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences in his early 20s. Over the past two and a half decades he has also held numerous positions in both Hollywood and Nashville as an elected officer, committee chair, and on the board of directors of the actors’ union SAG-AFTRA and its predecessor organizations. He played a key role in driving the merger of the two unions. 

Andrew completed his JD in just over a year and a half while still working as an actor and labor leader. While in law school, he was also a national champion trial advocate. It was there he first began to experiment with the application of actor training techniques to courtroom practice. He left Hollywood for Music City to enter private practice. While practicing in Nashville, he began giving CLEs and further developing his acting-to-law techniques locally. He also taught at the law school level for 6 years.

Andrew eventually came to the attention of trial skills and witness prep pioneers, Katherine James and Alan Blumenfeld. As he tells it, “I spent years developing these cutting-edge applications of acting technique to trial practice… only to find that Katherine and Alan came up with all of ‘my’ ideas in the late 1970s.” He joined and later took over their practice, which transformed as he added specialists in areas like voice, movement, combatting gender bias in juror perception, and in case-specific areas for witness preparation like sexual assault and traumatic brain injury.

He regularly teaches and speaks for organizations like AAJ, ABOTA, the American Society of Trial Consultants, the ABA, and for numerous state TLA’s, state BAR Associations, and Inns of Court. He also keynotes and holds workshops on basic public speaking skills for major corporations and AMLaw firms, though he always reserves his proprietary case strategy curriculum for his plaintiff audiences.

Andrew’s client list is a Who’s Who of America’s top trial lawyers, including many members of the Circle of Advocates and other organizations reserved for America’s best courtroom talents. He also does international trial consulting in other common law jurisdictions, in overseas civil maritime courts, and in human rights. Andrew regularly collaborates with other Trial Guides authors on their cases as a witness prep specialist. Of the lawyers and consultants he works with, he has said, “Sometimes I feel like Tom Brady’s quarterback coach. I ask myself why these people need a corner man when they are so brilliant. But I know from experience that what makes them great is that hunger to be better. I’m half teaching and half just working them out. It’s a collaboration.”

Though the firm now handles all types of cases outside of personal injury, Andrew remains a “plaintiffs’ guy, through and through”. He has directed the firm according to that mindset. His greatest joy outside of his family is in helping find and inspire the next Keith Mitnik, Jason Itkin, or maybe even Clarence Darrow among the young lawyers he works with. He has been quoted as saying, “The best lawyers in America today are people whose names you don’t know yet.”

Now based out of the Atlanta area (or Hollywood-East, as it’s known since so much tv and film moved to Georgia), Andrew sees the work he does on cases as a calling more than a job. “My heart and soul live with my witnesses. In our work they take us by the hand and walk us through their pain and tears. Losses you can’t imagine. I’m here to get them as much help as money can buy. And as best I can do it, my bigger goal is to adjust the price tag placed on their pain and loss in the eyes of the people who hurt them so it’s financially better to stop the bad thing from happening in the future. Big companies will always see people’s lives and loved ones as numbers, not souls. The lawyers I serve know what they’re fighting for is actually priceless.”