legal sanity

There's something in the air. My regular research excursion uncovered a host of recent articles offering advice on generating business. This one encourages us to ask prospects "open-ended questions" on the theory that "people want to feel as though speaking with you is a good investment of time, and the only way they will have that experience is if you do more listening than talking." This article discusses the art of the sale. Stating that selling "occurs when you match your services to a specific person's articulated needs," the piece walks us through the basics of the "sales pipeline." It closes on this familiar note: "In the end, the key to effective selling is in the art of asking questions and listening closely." Carolyn at My Shingle pointed me to this overview that compels us to take an honest look at the networking groups we belong to in order to ensure a proper (and lucrative) fit. Last, but certainly not least, comes this piece about vacation-time rainmaking. It tells us that, according to networking professionals,"relaxing on the beach, mingling at the bar, or traveling with a tour group opens the door for strangers to find common interests and oftentimes, the conversation leads to work, and making business deals and creating opportunities with new business partners." On that note, I'm heading off for some vacation time with my family. I'll resume blogging when I get back late next week. Until then, happy rainmaking!

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I've talked about lawyering and emotional intelligence (EQ) in posts like this one and this one. There's a new book out called The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book: Everything You Need to Know to Put Your EQ to Work. In it, the authors provide a test for assessing our EQ and tips for improving it. Here's an interview with one of the book's authors, psychologist Travis Bradberry. Qualifying his finding that "CEOs as a group have very low EQ scores," he notes: "Within each profession, the best performers have the highest EQs. Even the best CEOs have the highest EQs. But CEOs are often promoted for being good financial managers, not good people managers." Bradberry also asserts that the "demand right now for emotional intelligence in business is huge." Judging from accounts of the public perception of lawyers (discussed here and here), the business of law could use a sizeable infusion of emotionally intelligent leaders.

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I've written about the work law professor Lawrence S. Krieger is doing to "humanize" the law school experience and combat lawyer discontent. A recent trip to his site alerted me to two new booklets he's authored: The Hidden Sources of Law School Stress and Straight Talk about Your Career Choices. According to the promotional copy, the booklets commonly aim "to assist law students towards optimal performance and well-being in school and in the legal work they ultimately choose. A broader aspiration is to make a modest contribution, over time, to the improvement of the level of health, satisfaction and professionalism among lawyers generally." Given their content, these works can augment any law school class, clinic or program that might benefit from "a discussion of professionalism, professional skills, or professional stress." I can't think of any law school offering that wouldn't be enhanced by this line of discussion. The site links you to the booklets' content (pdf) for your reviewing pleasure.

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There's still time to register for an upcoming women lawyer's retreat on Reconnecting with your Self and Discovering the Work You Were Meant to Do. Co-lead by my friend, lawyer, author and career coach J. Kim Wright, the program takes place September 2-5 at the Center for Massage and Natural Health near Asheville, NC. Here's the gracious invitation extended to you in the promotional material: "Come spend a delicious weekend of recovering, replenishing and reconnecting with yourself and take a transformative look at your legal career. It may be time to discover and nurture a calling beyond the law. Or it may be time to use your creative skills in your law practice, designing a legal career that allows you to express your heart's desire. You may not even need to leave your current job! Let's explore all our creative options." It sounds like a great way to spend a holiday weekend.

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Rosa at the wonderful Talking Story blog directed me to this clip of author and speaker Marcus Buckingham discussing "the importance of using one's personal strengths in the workplace." There are a lot of thought-provoking observations packed into this little sound bite. Buckingham raises the question that's fueled his work to date: Why do so few of us have a chance to use our strengths - those things we enjoy most and do best - on the job? He does not supply an answer, but does cite a recent poll showing that the respondents spend only 17% of their working day doing things they really like to do. Asserting that this number is way too low, Buckingham declares his continuing interest in discovering how to build a better world that compels each of us to "identify and deploy the best of ourselves" in our chosen occupation. I wonder how many lawyers would have benefited from a law school curriculum designed to help us discover our individual strengths and match them to a particular area of the law or to a related field, such as dispute resolution or teaching.

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My friend Steve Keeva has written another insightful piece on bettering our lives in, and outside of, the law. This one addresses a topic I've discussed before: how to find pleasure, meaning and passion in our daily law practice. One of Steve's main messages is that we have the power to choose and create our own work culture. We don't have to embrace the scorch-the-earth tactics and combative disposition that have become the standard fare of our profession today. If we learn to "downshift" and make "a habit of being aware of what matters most" to us - the people, places and activities we cherish - we can reconnect with "the very things that [we] feel passionate about," including our vocation. Reinforcing the idea that we need to follow our passion in our work life and beyond is this fascinating piece about trial lawyer Ward Powers, who took time off from the law to chronicle his journey to answer "some of life's ultimate questions." The product of his two-year project is an independent film called One that you can learn more about here.

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This article on compassion nicely continues the multi-faceted discourse (including this, this and this) on doing business in a conceptual age governed by artistry, empathy and emotion. The author, "a lawyer trained as a peacemaker," describes compassion as "a blend of fairness, kindness, gentleness, honesty, respect, courage and love" that allows us to acknowledge "the emotions of others without entering into or being swayed by these emotions." Addressing how compassion is "relevant to the business environment," the article states: "Every business involves relationships between people. [] No one would dispute that cultivating positive relationships is good for business. Yet we spend almost no time and effort acquiring the habits and skills necessary to create harmonious relationships." Compassion, it continues, is one of the key "habits and skills" that enable us to build healthy and constructive business relations. The piece ends with some pointers on cultivating our "capacity for compassion" so we can become more effective business generators and leaders.

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My posts here, here and here concern the importance of doing work we love as the worldwide business landscape flattens and changes. Over at his blog, Dan Pink points to this interesting article discussing how younger workers view the emerging conceptual age "in which data will be less important than creativity, and jobs will be more fulfilling." Highlighting Pink's work and his theory that professional success in our new economy will require a healthy dose of self-discovery, the piece depicts the traits we "need to develop to do well in the conceptual age." They are: an aesthetic eye (design sense); empathy (emotional intelligence +); and the ability to negotiate and navigate ("to do something that is not routine, that doesn't have a right answer"). It will be interesting to see if the American legal profession comes to acknowledge these markers of the new economic era and starts to value and foster such traits in its workforce.

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I previously posted on different views of the lawyer's role in mediation. Here's an article offering yet another perspective on the topic. It posits that many lawyers come to the mediation table fearing that the "mediator will somehow usurp them and their role and have a disproportional influence on their client's attitude to resolution." The piece goes on to offer some tips on how mediators can address this concern and honor the attorney-client relationship. Among the helpful hints for mediators to consider: (1) acknowledge the lawyer's expertise; (2) treat counsel as co-mediators adept at negotiation; and (3) give lawyers credit where credit is due - make them "look good." I like the article's suggestions on how to ease mediator-advocate relations. But, vis-à-vis the lawyer-client relationship, I think the mediator's role goes well beyond allaying counsels' insecurities and satisfying their need for control. Indeed, success in mediation often rests on whether the mediator has taken the time to ensure that advocate and client have a common understanding of the matter and have worked together to set realistic goals that meet the client's real needs and interests.

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This Christian Science Monitor story features the work of student advocates in Pace Law School's environmental law clinic. These second and third years build vital skills and confidence facing such sizable opponents as Exxon-Mobile and representing a local environmental group fighting pesticide use. Pace's prestigious program is part of a growing trend towards adding "real-world cases to law school classrooms." According to the article, law schools nationwide now offer clinics "in just about every legal field, from family law to securities arbitration, in keeping with the move toward specialization in legal training." My alma mater, Fordham Law School, was on the leading edge of this important trend. As a third year, I participated in a mediation clinic in small claims court that opened my eyes to the nature of the adversarial system and the enormous benefits of alternative dispute resolution. The insight I gained that semester about myself and my role as a conflict manager stayed with me as I launched my litigation career and informed my later decision to become a mediator.

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A while back I wrote about law-firm sponsored leadership programs. Here's a new article on the same subject. It relates that many rapidly growing firms are "partnering with top universities to implement management training for their current leaders and younger attorneys who show management promise" in order to populate the "helm for the next generation of law firm workers." Duly acknowledging that these programs fill a void left by the typical law school curriculum, the piece notes that "whether a crash course in Management 101 can help turn a lawyer into a leader remains uncertain." Among the obstacles fueling this nature v. nurture uncertainty "may be the personality types of lawyers themselves." According to one authority quoted in the article, "the qualities that make good lawyers are not the same as those that make good leaders." Lawyers usually survive and thrive on traits like "skepticism; high cognitive thinking; urgency or impatience; autonomy; sensitivity or defensiveness; and a lack of sociability." By contrast, leaders "tend to be more sociable" than the average lawyer and "usually are less skeptical or distrustful of others. In addition, they have high urgency in their eagerness to reach closure on issues." This observation echoes the view of lawyer personality traits espoused by other researchers, as I previously discussed here. It may well be that practitioners with traits atypical of most lawyers - those most dissatisfied with the traditional, adversarial practice of law - are the very best candidates for becoming the effective and respected firm leaders of tomorrow.

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During my vacation, I started reading Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth. Campbell believes that myths from different cultures are really very similar in that they all provide "clues to the spiritual potentialities of human life" and the "experience of being alive." Opining that we're now living in a "demythologized world," he states: "What we're learning in our schools is not the wisdom of life. We're learning technologies, we're getting information. There's a curious reluctance on the part of faculties to indicate the life value of their subjects." (Notably, Campbell expressed these sentiments about information overload some 20 years ago, before the advent of the Internet, Blackberry and iPod). I paused to consider this idea of teaching the "life value" of a subject and could recall only one law school class that went beyond the black letter to address such a valuation - it was a course on mediation. I've discussed the idea of law school reform before. I think infusing the basic curriculum with teachings on the "wisdom of life" in, and outside of, the law would cultivate more effective and contented lawyers. If you're interested in the topic, take a look at this recent article that adds an interesting spin to Campbell's vision of mythic virtues in these modern times. Presenting opposing perspectives, it considers whether it's possible (or even necessary) to cultivate courage in our fast-paced culture "geared to prize health, wealth, and social status."

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