Whenever I meet someone for the first time, the first question I am seemingly always asked is “What do you do for a living?” and my response is almost always the same, subdued, monotone answer: “I’m a lawyer.” My answer is not subdued and monotone because I hate what I do — in fact I love what I do — but it is subdued and monotone because of what people’s immediate reactions typically are “oh . . . wow” or “you probably read a lot, that sounds boring.”
The truth about law is that it’s not boring at all. In fact, I find it to be one of the more intellectually stimulating professions. Then why does law get such a bad rap with non-attorneys?
THE LEGAL PROFESSION IS NOT FOR EVERYONE
I think the main reason law gets such a bad rap from non-attorneys is because law is not for everyone. Being a lawyer does require a lot of reading, research, writing, and analysis, and not everyone is cut out for that. It is like that quote that seems to be circulated on every form of social media, on the bathroom stall in the dive bar across the street from your apartment, and — what I believe — wrongly attributed to Albert Einstein, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Regardless of who actually said this, I think it rings true. Not everyone is cut out to be a lawyer (and I’m not saying this to put anyone down) much the same way I am not cut out to be an NBA or NFL player.
That being said, I think a lot of people rule out the legal industry too soon because of the misconception that lawyers are all stiffs, with no minds of their own, that simply read and interpret rules. While being a lawyer does mean doing a lot of reading and interpretation, it also requires a lot of abstract thought and analysis.
CREATIVITY IN LAW IS A MUST
Regardless of whether you are a litigator, a transactional attorney, in-house counsel, or something else, you need to be creative. As a litigator, I need to be creative in coming up with arguments on behalf of my clients, in applying case law to those arguments, and even in determining what claims and defenses to bring. Indeed, an article I read earlier this week on this site was the perfect example of this. That article detailed a lawsuit against the dating application Grindr that was partially based on products liability law. When most people think about products liability law, they think about the wacky law school hypotheticals that often include things such as chainsaws, scuba equipment, or other physical tools or instruments. However, in the Grindr case, the plaintiff is arguing products liability as to the design of the software itself; a use of products liability law that I at least have never come across in any of my research.
This is exactly the type of creativity I previously lobbied for in my article titled The ‘Renaissance Attorney’: No, Lawyers Don’t Need To Learn Math Or Science (Yet), where I said that “[n]ew understandings can help an attorney look at their current cases or areas of expertise in a new way.” The lawyer in the Grindr case did just that: took their understanding of products liability and applied it to software. In this particular instance, lawyers decided to apply longstanding law to what is — relatively speaking — a new technological development. However, this is not the only way that a lawyer can, or needs to be creative in the work that they do.
While it is important to argue for how to fit new technology and developments into our current legal system (as the legislature cannot keep up with every current trend), it is equally important to understand how to incorporate existing laws into existing issues. I am not talking about making frivolous arguments in an effort to sue someone because they looked at you funny, but what I am talking about is knowing the relationships between different laws and the facts of your cases so that you can — and do — make the very best arguments for your client.
To that extent, while I agree that specializing in law is important, I think it is equally important to sometimes go outside your comfort zone and work with someone who does something a little bit different than you or go to a CLE about something that has nothing to do with your area of practice to see if you learn something. You will learn a lot more trying something new than you will reading and interpreting the same case for the XXth time.
I will try and close this out without seeming like a grumpy person, but in today’s day and age, it is very easy to see, read, hear, and learn only about what you want to see, read, hear, and learn about due to algorithms on social media and search engines. Don’t let your legal career and clients suffer because you are not willing to go outside your comfort zone and think of things in an abstract and creative way.
Legally Creative: Why Being A Lawyer Requires Abstract Thought curated from Above the Law
No comments:
Post a Comment