 |
| Murray Gottheil |
I have often wondered whether I would have been better off keeping my mushy mind so that I could think like a normal person, but that is a question for another day.
Although law schools teach students to understand and apply legal principles, there is plenty of important stuff that they never mention, including the importance of having a rudimentary understanding of psychology.
To give you an example, many years ago, I sought assistance from a psychologist to help me deal with my domestic reorganization. After speaking to me for a few minutes, he decided that it was vitally important to administer some tests to see if I was crazy. Upon reviewing the results, he told me that, although I had scored within the normal range in every category, when it came to paranoia, there was not much daylight between me and nuts. That was a valuable insight. After that, when my head started spinning with fear that I had made a mistake and was going to get sued, I would remind myself that was just my paranoia speaking and calm down.
Students arrive at law school from diverse backgrounds. These differences extend to psychological makeup, cultural background and socioeconomic status. Some arrive fresh from studying day and night for many years, having sacrificed other forms of personal development. Others enter the profession having had prior careers. Some have had extensive business backgrounds and others have had none.
Everyone is different, but we all need to understand ourselves — and others.
Practising law is a high-stakes game in which lawyers win in negotiations, mediations, arbitrations and litigation by skillfully interacting with their own clients, each other, mediators, arbitrators and judges.
One lawyer may know the law better than the other lawyer or have better technical skills, and those factors may impact the results obtained for the client. However, it is frequently the lawyer’s ability to communicate effectively that makes the difference, and that depends on their ability to understand other people.
In my case, understanding my tendency toward paranoia was a good thing to the extent that it made me careful about the risks in any situation but a bad thing to the extent that it made me nervous and too quick to react. Someone knowing that about me could use it to their advantage.
On the flip side of the coin, I eventually learned how important it is to know as much as possible about what makes the other side and their lawyer tick. Figuring out where they were coming from helped me do a better job for my client.
Neither law school nor the law society is going to teach you this stuff. Think about investing your own time and money to learn it.
Murray Gottheil is a retired lawyer living in the country, happy and driving a pickup truck. Reach him at www.lawanddisorderinc.com. His newest project is retiredmentors.com.
The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the author’s firm, its clients, LexisNexis Canada, Law360 Canada or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.
Interested in writing for us? To learn more about how you can add your voice to Law360 Canada, contact Analysis Editor Richard Skinulis at Richard.Skinulis@lexisnexis.ca or call 437-828-6772.