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September 23, 2007
Got Resilience?
Please see a piece by Texas lawyer Mark Bennett I've been brooding about ever since I saw it: "Resiliency". But don't obsess about it too much. Ironically, resilience--the ability to recover and spring back from adversity, a shock or a set-back in short order--is not a lawyer trait. Indeed, these days there's lots of commentary out there which in the aggregate goes something like this: lawyers don't market, work, argue, negotiate, or even do trial work as well as they could because they are "relational", nice, academic at heart, a bit passive aggressive, naturally not "war-like" and--even when we are competitive and direct--we suffer, brood and worry too long about setbacks and defeats. And we are beginning to hate what we do all day long because, oddly, (1) neither fighting (2) nor "going with the flow" are in our natures. It's true. We lawyers are, in the main, natural-born
weenies and squirrels. We are great people. But we sweat small stuff--part of our job, of course--and we over-react. We have amazingly poor defenses to each day's hard knocks and battles.
Well, why? My take: the profession attracts type-A eldest-child perfectionists who can become disoriented and even ashamed by not winning on every point. We get hurt easily. Too many of us suffer guilt or shame in the smallest defeat. We even kick ourselves about being that way. We feel like impostors. And that--trying to be something we can't always easily be--makes things worse. We start to hate our jobs and our lives. If our clients knew how thin-skinned and tortured some of us really are, they'd just take pity and fire us.
Solution? Somehow--and I don't care how--get over yourself, free yourself from all that bondage of self, and accept that some defeat is inherent in everything you do, and may be even helpful to achieve good results. I am NOT talking here about being a good loser or lowering standards. It's about Sweating Just Big Stuff. Stepping back. Getting perspective. Nothing brilliant here. However, without even doing an empirical study, it's obvious to me that lawyer "over-sensitivity" is a huge problem in our lawyer worlds and workplaces. Our reactions to the sum of small bad stuff prevents us from doing the big stuff or from doing it well. This hurts us as people. But way more importantly, it hurts your client: the main event. Remember that as a lawyer you are not royalty--sorry, but you never were that special. Clients are not "the equipment" for a patrician game. You are there to serve.
If you can't get a plan for this and change yourself--or can only do it the cost of violating who you really are--think about another career path. And for godssake if you're a trial lawyer, part of your damn job is to be resilient. So get some of it really, really fast, and buck up there, mate--or just teach, sell women's shoes or get that masters in taxation at NYU you sometimes dream about.
Posted by JD Hull at September 23, 2007 08:20 PM
Comments
JD,
Thanks for the mention.
I like the connection between resilience (I'll plead guilty to using an additional syllable unnecessarily) and "going with the flow."
You're saying that resilience is not a lawyer's trait, but that part of a trial lawyer's job is to be resilient. Is there a distinction I'm missing?
Posted by: Mark Bennett at September 23, 2007 07:23 PM
Thanks, Mark. Maybe I didn't say it all that well but it's this: (1) yes, ALL lawyers are supposed to have resilience/resiliency (either word is OK, they tell me) in their jobs, but (2) hardly any of us have it in our natural personalities. So we have problems because it doesn't come as naturally as it does for the general population. Most lawyers, in my view, have to work on it. Mark, as a trial lawyer, especially one in criminal defense--I've done a bit, but just 3 criminal jury trials, and it's tougher and meaner than civil business defense work--you, my friend, personally are likely to be a clear exception. Me? I am resilient if nothing else, and thick-skinned, for better or for worse. But most of the dogs, on this one, just won't hunt.
Posted by: Dan Hull at September 23, 2007 11:36 PM
The other problem I note that a lot of lawyers suffer from is procrastination: you put off starting the job becuase a) your personal standards are so high for what you want to produce it seems an insurmountable task or b)you start late becuause you know if you start early you will spend 15 hours on what should be a 5 hour job.
Also some lawyers will do anything rather than look foolish in court or in front of their client; lie, cheat, steal. They'd rather put their career on the line than look stupid. But doing time looks really stupid, so even if you have to fall on your sword once or twice, better to put it down to experience and vow not to make the same mistake next time.
Whilst suffering from all the only child prefectionist anxieties, I had the "benefit" or spending the first two years of my professional career doing legal aid defence work at a big London Firm. Criminal clients tend to be rather more honest than civil clients since they have very little to lose. If they don't like you they will say so. Legal aid work is always pressured and occassionally stuff hit the wall, but I learned that life goes on, the sun still comes up, and there is another case tomorrow, which you can't do if you are still beating yourself up about the mistakes you made today.
I read once that one of the reasons women are not more successful in law is that they are more afraid than men of taking risks and making mistakes. Unfortunately taking risks is necessary if you want to progress in life, and the mark of truly successful people is their willingness to take risks and make mistakes.
Your clients are not paying for God; they couldn't afford his rates. Clients are humans too, oddly sometimes a demonstration of your human weaknesses makes them warm to you more. Clients want to see that you are taking an interest in them and trying your best.
Posted by: Ruthie at September 24, 2007 10:00 AM