THE
GOOD LAWYER Every lawyer
wants to be a good lawyer. All
lawyers want to serve their clients’
interests well and, by the end of a career,
feel they’ve made a contribution to the
communities that they value. The Good
Lawyer: Seeking Quality in the Practice of
Law, identifies and considers the
virtues, skills, and attitudes that can help
people become the kind of lawyer they really
want to be: a good lawyer. The
Good Lawyer makes no promise that
quality lawyering will come to all who
follow twelve easy steps. Quality
is less something one grasps and hangs onto
than a goal that requires constant striving
and attention.
Drawing from the stories of lawyers
and the latest social science research, The
Good Lawyer highlights the potential
value of virtues and capacities, such as
honesty and empathy, for example, while also
warning that even these much valued
attributes can sometimes be too much of a
good thing.
There are times in most legal careers
when a lawyer may have to deceive and even
empathy can be unhelpful when not coupled
with the sense of knowing when to detach. It
isn’t easy being good. In a search to
find the keys to good lawyering, readers are
introduced to courageous lawyers in the Jim
Crow South, shown the psychodrama exercises
Gerry Spence offers to trial lawyers at
Thunderhead Ranch in Wyoming, and taken to
Palo Alto, the home of Lex Machina, the
latest and greatest high tech effort at
improving predictive skills in the legal
field.
Readers will find a book full of
surprises and insights, all presented with
the goal of making them the best lawyers
they can be.
Seeking Quality in the
Practice of Law
by DOUGLAS O. LINDER and
NANCY LEVIT (Oxford
University
Press, 2013)
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
Random
Facts
The
Happy Lawyer