What makes a good lawyer great

What Makes a Good Lawyer Great by: Jim Howard, Licensed Professional CounselorDirector, Missouri Lawyers' Assistance Program There are many good lawyers in the legal profession. I have had the good fortune to meet many of them. I suppose that any credible definition of a “good lawyer” might include: Legal and practice skills Good work ethics Professional representation Ethical and professional behavior and Adequate financial success So, what makes a good lawyer great? I am not naïve or pompous enough to suggest that I have the answer. One thing that stands out in my mind, however, is that the truly great lawyers are perhaps those who seem to have a “higher purpose” professionally than personal material success. While this may seem obvious to many, perhaps it is lost sight of by some as the legal profession is faced with a lack of public confidence, incivility among many lawyers, and the incredible stress and anxiety experienced by many lawyers. Just what is the “higher purpose?” Who determines what this higher purpose will be? Do you have a mission as a lawyer that transcends yourself? Of course, only you can answer these questions. Think of your own personal, professional mission as being the fusion of two parts, your vision and your personal action plan to make this vision come to fruition. Think of your vision as something you want for everyone, and also something that is so universal and big that you will never actually achieve it in your lifetime. For example, your vision may be equal access to justice for all. Your action plan could be to provide legal services on a sliding fee scale. Your mission, therefore, might be to “provide equal access to justice for all by charging a sliding fee scale.” There is no “correct” mission. The point is that, in my judgment, every lawyer should have a professional mission, and it should be larger and beyond personal success. I suggest that a transcending mission gives you a noble purpose for existing professionally. I offer to you that it is this that elevated you above the mundane, perhaps makes your profession worthy of public support, and makes your community a better place to live in. This is what I think of when considering what makes a good lawyer great. What do you think?

The nature of law

Lawyers are typically interested in the question: What is the law on a particular issue? This is always a local question and answers to it are bound to differ according to the specific jurisdiction in which they are asked. In contrast, the philosophy of law is interested in the general question: What is Law? This general question about the nature of law presupposes that law is a unique social-political phenomenon, with more or less universal characteristics that can be discerned through philosophical analysis. General jurisprudence, as this philosophical inquiry about the nature of law is called, is meant to be universal. It assumes that law possesses certain features, and it possesses them by its very nature, or essence, as law, whenever and wherever it happens to exist. However, even if there are such universal characteristics of law, the reasons for a philosophical interest in elucidating them remain to be explained. First, there is the sheer intellectual interest in understanding such a complex social phenomenon which is, after all, one of the most intricate aspects of human culture. Law, however, is also a normative social practice: it purports to guide human behavior, giving rise to reasons for action. An attempt to explain this normative, reason-giving aspect of law is one of the main challenges of general jurisprudence. These two sources of interest in the nature of law are closely linked. Law is not the only normative domain in our culture; morality, religion, social conventions, etiquette, and so on, also guide human conduct in many ways which are similar to law. Therefore, part of what is involved in the understanding of the nature of law consists in an explanation of how law differs from these similar normative domains, how it interacts with them, and whether its intelligibility depends on such other normative orders, like morality or social conventions. [from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - 1st paragraph]

Law is like love

‘Law says the judge as he looks down his nose, Speaking clearly and most severely, Law is as I’ve told you before, Law is as you know I suppose, Law is but let me explain it once more, Law is the Law.’ W.H. Auden ‘Law is Like Love.’

What - me a lawyer?

I seem to have incurable stage fright. I have a weeeeak memory. So how will I face a courtroom and argue with my opponent? How will I remember case laws or even the facts of the case to whip them on the face of my opponent (or should that be on the face of the jury)? Well, let me keep blogging on - who knows the path ahead.