THE GOOD LAWYER
Seeking Quality in the Practice of Law
by DOUGLAS O. LINDER and NANCY LEVIT (Oxford University Press, 2013)

About The Good  Lawyer

Preface

Introductory Note

The Good Lawyer is Courageous

The Good Lawyer is Empathetic

The Good Lawyer Has a Passion for Justice


The Good Lawyer Values Others in the Legal Community


The Good Lawyer Uses Both Intuition and Deliberative Thinking


The Good Lawyer Thinks Realistically About the Future


The Good Lawyer Serves the True Interests of Clients


The Good Lawyer Has Ample Willpower


The Good Lawyer is Persuasive

Seeking Quality
 
Quotes


The Happy Lawyer




A majority of clients agree with the statement that lawyers "are less compassionate and caring" than they used to be.
Parole boards are significantly more likely to grant parole right after lunch than right before lunch.
Most lawyers overestimate the likelihood of positive outcomes in cases.
Conservatives are better able to predict the arguments that will sway liberals than liberal are able to predict what arguments will move conservatives.
With very few exceptions, things that happen to us today will have no effect on our happiness level three months from now.
Justice Scalia says his "best buddy" on the Supreme Court is Justice Ginsburg.
A 2011 study showed that empathy levels of college students had declined 40% from levels measured in college students two or three decades ago.
Our reasoning system serves our intuition as "a lawyer serves a client"--primarily as an apologist for decisions that are really made by intuition.

In 2012, Cook County, Illinois public defenders handled an average of 685 cases per lawyer.
By requiring lawyers to sign statements stating, "All the billing time indicated is a true and honest reflection of actual hours billed," overbilling is reduced by 15%..

Group forecasts of outcomes, according to Nate Silver, are "between 15 and 20 percent" more accurate than individual forecasts.
In a Gallup Poll, only 19% of Americans thought the honesty and ethics of lawyers was either "high" or "very high."
The writing quality of perfectionists is "significantly lower in quality" than that of non-perfectionists.

As we age, the right hemispheres of our brains (the center for creative and novel solutions) degrades more rapidly than the left hemispheres, where most pattern recognition takes place.
While people recall only 20% of what they read, thy will recall 80% of the symbols.
Clarence Darrow preferred Irish jurors to German, Methodist jurors to Baptist, but especially preferred "Jew and agnostic" jurors.
MRIs show that at least ten interconnected regions of the brain are active during empathizing. Self-control is the single best predictor of a successful career and a successful life.
THE GOOD LAWYER