This article about a lawyer disbarred for excessive confrontational behavior pairs well with this one about a judge who, acknowledging an "inability to back down when confronted," resigned from the bench while under investigation for mistreating lawyers and litigants. Both pieces point up how emotions, and the ability to handle them, infuse and affect lawyer professionalism.
The International Academy of Collaborative Professionals (IACP) will be holding its annual Forum in Boston on October 22-24, 2004. The IACP is a leader in collaborative law, a relatively new dispute resolution paradigm described here and here. Parties to the collaborative legal process and their lawyers agree to work through disputes without resorting to the courts. If impasse arises and court involvement becomes necessary, the collaborative lawyers are disqualified from any further involvement in the case. According to the information I received, the IACP's Forum is a widely attended event that includes workshops on practice-related and ethical issues, a presentation of empirical research on collaborative law, and a dinner featuring Professor Robert Mnookin, chair of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.
I often use humor to deescalate a stressful situation with opposing counsel or a client. Here's an article on humor etiquette for lawyers. I think it gives some sound advice, but I find something humorous in the very existence of an article that schools lawyers on how and when to be funny.
At The [non]billable hour, Matt Homann has invited readers to chronicle five things they would change about the practice of law, if they had the power. The responses already posted run the gamut from proposed changes in the way lawyers and their firms serve clients and embrace technology to innovations in professionalism. It's very interesting to see the how differently the contributors construe the two key elements of the inquiry: "change" and "the practice of law."
If you've thought about creating a law practice that reflects your interests outside the law, take a look at this article from the ABA's GP/Solo New Lawyer e-newsletter. It discusses how lawyer Gary C. Brustin has channeled his love of cycling into a "niche personal injury law practice specializing in cycling-injury-related cases." Because of his personal experiences as a cyclist and with cycling injuries, Gary has unique insight into his client concerns and needs. He stresses that "every attorney should specialize in a field of the law that rings true in both their heart and their mind." And, if kicking is more your game, check out this article about a lawyer who put his passion for martial arts to work.
There's been a lot of discussion about lawyers bending or distorting the truth in the name of zealous representation. If it's hard for some lawyers to tell where the zealousness ends and dishonesty begins, this article from the Christian Science Monitor suggests that the difficulty reflects a growing trend in our country. According to the piece, in "the high-pressure, high-stakes environment of 21st- century America, lying has for many apparently become a way of life." While people know that lying is wrong, the piece relates, they do it anyway because they feel it's the only way to get the success they want. From doctoring resumes to plagiarism to defrauding investors, the "cheating culture" has taken firm root and, glorified by such consumer staples as reality T.V., shows no sign of decay. What can be done to counter the trend? One solution, according to the article, is to fix "winner-take-all" incentive systems that engender excessive competitiveness and insecurity. Another is to educate "the next generation" about the high costs of deception and shame.
This article (pdf) from the Journal of the Association of Legal Writing Directors posits that law schools miss the mark by focusing on training students to "think like lawyers" rather then equipping them to "transition from 'thinking' to 'doing' to 'being.'" The reality is, the article continues, that thinking like a lawyer only gets students so far. If they can't write, speak well, craft a cogent argument, work cooperatively or relate well to other human beings, "all the thinking like a lawyer in the world will not help them become good lawyers." After chronicling the fears that keep law schools from revising their curriculums to address the "full panoply of necessary skills" for today's lawyers, the article asks educators to consider the fundamental question "Who are our law schools run for?"
In this interview from Steven Keeva's Transforming Practices (see prior post here), the late professor Janeen Kerper of California Western School of Law remakes the tort class classic Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Company, 248 N.Y. 339, 162 N.E. 99 (1928). The facts remain the same: Helen Palsgraf is waiting on a train platform in East New York when another passenger, running for the train, drops a package containing fireworks. The fireworks explode, causing a scale on the platform to fall, injuring Mrs. Palsgraf. Instead of considering the case's relevance to the laws of negligence, Kerper remarks: "When I first began teaching Palsgraf, I was struck by the fact that the appellate decision contains only the barest description of the facts. After reading the case, you do not know how old Mrs. Palsgraf was, what her hopes and dreams were, whether she had any family, nor even the precise nature of her injury. The factual record of the appellate decision is completely stripped of humanity." According to Kerper, Palsgraff presents a unique opportunity for law students to go beyond the four corners of an appellate decision to the realm of lawyers as creative problem solvers. In that capacity, lawyers look to "the client's underlying needs, goals and objectives" in order to come up with "a broad array of possible solutions" to the legal problem before them. So, sitting down to an initial consultation, Kerper's student-lawyers might ask Mrs. Palsgraf: "Why don't you tell me more about yourself? Where do you live? What do you do? What are your greatest concerns? How do you want your life to change? What kind of future do you want for yourself and your family?" A little humanity goes a long way towards meeting clients' real needs.
Here's an article from post-gazette.com discussing why relatively few lawyers opt to work part time. The piece mentions Deborah Epstein Henry's Flex-Time Lawyers LLC, "a networking and support group for lawyers who work a flexible and/or reduced schedule (or those who are thinking about working such schedules). Members, mostly working mothers who are juggling career and family, meet monthly for lunch to discuss topics relating to work/life balance in the law and occasionally hear guest speakers." Although I'm a content full-time practitioner, I recently accepted an invitation to learn more about the organization at one of its monthly meetings in New York City. I had a great time and met some terrific people. The FTL Web site lists upcoming meetings in New York and Philadelphia.
I recently finished Thane Rosenbaum's book The Myth of Moral Justice: Why Our Legal System Fails to Do What's Right. While my personal take on the legal profession's future falls more into the "glass half full" camp, Rosenbaum accurately highlights some of the systemic weaknesses that need redressing. Throughout the book, he chronicles the need for lawyers to once again regard themselves as members of a healing profession, noting that "a client with a grievance is not that much different from a patient in pain" and that the "origins of what brings many litigants to the courthouse are indignities done to the spirit." He also points to a critical breakdown of communication between most lawyers and their clients. Trained to think only in terms of legal rights and interests and unschooled in "the art of empathy," Rosenbaum opines, lawyers simply can't hear "the language of grievance" their clients are speaking. Whether or not you agree with his contention that the legal system/profession lacks a moral dimension, Rosenbaum provides a lot of food for thought on this important subject.
This article and this one discuss how lawyers can cultivate emotional intelligence (EI) - a group of mental abilities that help us recognize and understand our own and others' feelings - and use it to better serve our clients and handle difficult opposing counsel. For more information on EI, I highly recommend Daniel Goleman's seminal book: Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ.
Here's an uplifting story about some young New York lawyers who took on a pro bono immigration matter others deemed a lost cause and - yup - won. Of particular note is how the team saw fit to help their client with some "emotional matters" by getting him psychological counseling. One law school-bound assistant working on the case summed it up nicely by saying: "When you work for a firm like [this], where you have these tremendous resources, it's important to get involved in pro bono. It reminds you of the human aspect of law."
I came across some information on an upcoming conference for law professors at Gonzaga University School of Law in Spokane, Washington. Themed "Active Teaching and Learning," the conference will offer, among other things, "workshops that explore effective uses of Socratic dialog and active alternatives to Socratic dialog, such as discussion, simulation, writing, experiential methods, and others." You can access the full conference flyer (pdf) listing such interesting workshops as "Empirical Insights: The Personal Foundations of Ethics, Professionalism, and Well-Being" and "Art, Music, and Drama in the Law School." Law school wasn't this fun when I was a kid.
This article discusses "a small but energetic movement within legal academia to 'humanize' the law school experience." Led by Florida State University law professor Lawrence S. Krieger, the movement recognizes that, by teaching students "healthy perspectives," getting them to discuss their "needs and fears" and helping them reinforce their "core values," law schools can play a key role in combating the high levels of lawyer distress reported in articles like this one and this one.
In this article New York State Bar Association president Kenneth G. Standard discusses his plans to put the issue of "quality of life in the profession near the top of his agenda." Stating that "law has definitely become more of a business and less of a profession," Standard acknowledges that "lawyer's lives have grown much harsher in recent years." To help nip the problem of lawyer dissatisfaction in the bud, Standard has "planned outreach and other initiatives to help students make a more informed decision about becoming lawyers."
This upcoming Mindfulness and Meditation Workshop presented by the Harvard Negotiation Insight Initiative will teach participants a "sophisticated method for working with people, resolving disputes, and enriching" themselves. The medical and corporate cultures have already tapped meditation as a professional resource and, according to Professor Leonard L. Riskin of the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law, the legal establishment should follow suit. In this informative article, Riskin discusses mindfulness meditation's potential for countering lawyer unhappiness and optimizing the attorney-client relationship.
One of the major complaints about lawyers today is that they don't take the time to really listen to their clients. This article from the Michigan Bar Journal suggests that lawyers need to acquire a new skillset called active listening. Active listening (a/k/a reflective listening) "involves identifying a client's vaguely or inarticulately stated feelings and reflecting them back to the client to show understanding or to allow the client to correct a misunderstanding." According to the article, active listening facilitates rapport, respect and relationship, the three guiding principles for framing a conversation. "Rapport means the ability to talk and listen to clients and make them feel both understood and important. Respect means valuing clients as people and not snickering about the decisions they have made, no matter how ludicrous, stupid, or naïve these decisions may appear to be. Relationship means connecting with clients because they are human beings, and as such, are more than simply a source of income or an opportunity to further one's legal reputation." Along with building these three rs, lawyers should listen for emotional words like fear, loss, anger and pain. Clients use emotional words to give "clues about how they experience and understand what is happening, or has happened, to them." Recognizing that many lawyers might reject active listening as the touchy-feely stuff of psychotherapists, the piece aptly states: "the simple truth—no different than medicine, psychotherapy, or other professional endeavors—is that the law is about real people and the lives they live. In short, the law is a helping profession. In this regard, our work should have a sense of vocation about it, a sense of calling."
Many of us looking to reconnect with the heart, soul and spirit of our chosen profession have found an incredible resource in Steven Keeva's book Transforming Practices: Finding Joy & Satisfaction in the Legal Life. Steven is assistant managing editor of the ABA Journal and writes a regular column there called "Keeva On Life And Practice." NB - Steven has written about me and we did a presentation together. Our personal connection aside, he deserves much recognition for fostering a healthy and necessary dialogue within the legal profession.
I've been reading Matthew Homann's the [non]billable hour for some time. His take on the importance of client service and relations fits nicely with the approach to lawyering espoused under the paradigm of Therapeutic Jurisprudence(TJ). TJ envisions lawyers as members of a healing profession who promote client wellbeing by addressing the emotional and psychological aspects of the legal process. TJ's teachings have found a mainstream audience of lawyers and law firms looking to better serve their clientele.
This article suggests that lawyers can achieve work-life balance by establishing priorities, setting limits and recognizing that "having it all" is impossible. Its cut-and-dry approach pairs well with this questionnaire focusing on external sources of work-life disequilibrium. By contrast, this article takes readers through exercises that help them identify internal sources of imbalance. According to the article, people with "intrinsic" primary goals and values - such as self-improvement, close relationships, community and social betterment - tend to feel happy and balanced in their careers and lives. But those focused on "extrinsic" goals - such as financial affluence, luxury, power and image - tend to experience decreased work-life satisfaction.
Having watched the Tony Awards last night, I'm inspired to take a moment to thank a few of the many people who've made this blog possible. After my tech-savvy friend Matt Timothy suggested that I start a blog to share my interests and ideas, I educated myself a bit (o.k., that should read "my wife the Web research fanatic educated me") and then I turned to Kevin O'Keefe of lexBlog. With infinite patience, Kevin and his team helped me translate my content, and my friend Michelle Shain's artistic vision, into this site. I was one of Kevin's first clients and closely followed the debate generated around the launch of his company. I believe (and this is an unsolicited endorsement) that lexBlog provides an invaluable service to lawyers who lack the time, talent or inclination to start up and maintain a blog all by themselves. Thanks, all, for helping me find my inner blogger.
According to this synopsis of an American Bar Association national survey, lawyers need to be better communicators and should be taught "the importance of lawyer-client relationships in law school." Although a bit dated, the study offers a consumer's-eye-view of the legal profession that's still relevant. You can download the study, including an interesting segment on What Americans Like/Do Not Like About Lawyers (pdf).
If you've never taken a Myers-Briggs or other personality test to see if the lawyer life is right for you, this site provides some handy self-assessment tools.
Professor Susan Daicoff of Florida Coastal School of Law has researched and written extensively on lawyer personality traits and has a new book incorporating her work on the topic. According to Daicoff, practitioners with traits atypical of most lawyers - that is, those with a feeling decision-making preference or a moral decision-making style known as an ethic of care - are more likely to be dissatisfied with the traditional adversarial practice of law. They may be better suited to practicing what Daicoff calls comprehensive law. The distinct modes, or "vectors," of the comprehensive law movement all aim to foster human wellbeing and consider factors beyond strict legal rights and duties - such as relationships, needs, values, goals and morals - in resolving issues.
By all reports the American legal profession is in trouble, plagued by elevated rates of substance abuse and depression among lawyers; rising incivility and decaying courtroom environments; rampant client dissatisfaction; and discernible attrition as more and more burnt out practitioners leave the career they idolized - and idealized - when they started law school.
If you're not as satisfied or successful in your legal career as you'd like to be, you don't need to compromise. You can change course right now and create the professional life you want and deserve.
legal sanity aims to counter the growing problem of lawyer discontent by providing practical information, ideas and advice on remaking the everyday practice of law to achieve optimal outcomes, professional and personal success and work-life balance.
Coverage will include:
Let legal sanity be your guide to rethinking and revitalizing your life in the law.
This article and another from the Boston Globe highlight the problems of lawyer burnout and client discontent besetting today's legal profession. Although they probably go too far in suggesting that the average lawyer "hates what he does," the articles do a lot to bring this professional "crisis" to the public's attention. They also convey the upbeat message that crisis begets a golden opportunity for practitioners and educators to revamp the way law is currently taught and practiced in this country.
When I was just out of law school in 1991, my dear friend Alan Beaven gave me a book on the law as a healing profession. Although the concept was somewhat foreign to me, I found the book's message intriguing.
Alan soon left his job at a large international law firm based in New York to pursue his dream of becoming an environmental lawyer in California. Meanwhile, I was immersed in my fledgling career as a litigator at a preeminent firm, spending my days and nights working on a huge sports antitrust case that resembled hand-to-hand combat.
As I grew into a more seasoned lawyer, I watched Alan's career blossom and unfold. A clean water advocate, he built a successful practice dedicated to the greater good. He was also completely devoted to his wife and three children.
In the same spirit of giving and devotion, at age 48, Alan decided to take a one-year sabbatical to do pro bono environmental work for a nonprofit organization in rural New York and its affiliate in India.
On the eve of his move overseas, he received a call that the proposed settlement in one of his California cases fell through. Not wanting to leave the matter unresolved, Alan made plans to return to San Francisco for a settlement conference.
Sadly, Alan's plane crashed in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. He was honored posthumously by the United States Senate for his heroism in helping to thwart the terrorist mission aboard United Flight 93. He was also awarded for his outstanding service and commitment to the legal profession.
May Alan's courage, dedication, humor and wisdom inspire us all to practice law and live life skillfully, joyfully and meaningfully for the benefit of all.
Enter keywords:
 |
|
|
||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||
|
|
|
fill out the contact/message fields below to learn more about arnie's seminars and professional services and to receive his free e-newsletter, the legal sanity moment
