I have had the good fortune of working as a trial strategist for over 25 years . During that time , I have worked with many very good trial lawyers . I often joke with friends that my own success as a consultant was due mostly to my ability to choose great lawyers to work with , and this is not entirely untrue . In the book “ The Authentic Attorney ,” Ven and I outlined the psychology and techniques of great trial lawyers , but in retrospect we neglected a key characteristic of those who succeed professionally and personally — humility . It is humility that is an essential quality that creates success as a trial lawyer , and it is the loss of humility that leads to professional and personal destruction . Without some sense of humility , it is difficult , but not impossible , to be successful as a trial attorney , but without humility even the most talented will ultimately fail .
What I have come to believe is that every successful trial lawyer comes to an existential choice at some point between the pursuit of fame and fortune or the pursuit of connectedness with their true self . It is possible to choose success and still not lose the connection . Fame and fortune can destroy anyone in any profession , but it is the quality of humility that remains essential for the trial lawyer to do their job well and to survive their own success .
Many truly gifted attorneys rose from humble roots and became consumed with the love of trial work . They loved the role of seeking justice for victims — of persuading jurors to “ give justice to the oppressed and freedom to the imprisoned ” with the zeal of a modernday Isaiah . Their connectedness with their own suffering and with suffering people creates a sense of compassion and empathy that translated to their ability to communicate that suffering to jurors and to persuade juries to provide large money verdicts . Yet , if one were to track the typical arc of this success , it too often seems to lead to a descent into a profound sense of emptiness just as they are realizing financial success and begin to travel about the upper strata of the legal Plutarch . Lost is the joy that was felt after getting those first verdicts for clients , replaced by a disappointing sense that the verdict wasn ’ t large enough because it didn ’ t grab attention , or disappointment that the accolades are not loud enough or long enough afterwards . News of an even larger money verdict creates resentment when it used to be greeted with celebration . These are symptoms of a malady created when money and success become the raison d ’ etre , rather than the victim or the cause .
What causes this shift in perspective is often the loss of humility . It is the loss of connectedness with the suffering client and your own past that makes the pursuit of success at trial a Sisyphus-like sentence of endless streams of trials that no longer hold meaningful rewards — only more labor . There is no joy because the end is not seen from the perspective of the clients or the cause .
Humility is an elusive virtue with many imitators . True humility is a recognition of one ’ s flaws and talents , but it is primarily the sense of one ’ s relation to others . I may be smart , but I am not the smartest person in the room . I may be hurting , but I am not hurting more than my client . My needs are important but not necessarily more important than others . Humility is a reminder of our past that grounds our understanding of the present . Humility is a recognition that no one person is more special than me and their suffering no less important . Humility is remembering what it felt like to be the kid who was bullied in grade school or rejected by your first crush . Humility is remembering what it felt like to be chosen last in the playground pickup game . True humility does not cause resentment over these past hurts , but rather compels you to understand and relate , to empathize and act to help .
Success as a trial lawyer is dependent on the ability to understand not only the damage done to a client , but even more so the meaning of the damage to the client . It is humility that educates us as to the meaning of their suffering . It compels us to listen and to understand and to relate . Humility encourages the desire to listen and understand and enables understanding the meaning of damages to the individual .
Humility teaches the trial attorney that they are not entitled to anything , and that everything is earned with hard work and a mission tethered to compassion for their client . The most successful trial lawyers have come from humble roots . Lincoln , Darrow , Marshall , Spence — and hundreds of contemporary rising stars . All the great ones faced that existential choice at some point in their careers after their success and had to choose between who they were that led to their success or who they would become with that success . Many crashed and burned , some pulled out of the dive by what St . Augustine identified as the shortest route to humility — humiliation .
Success in trials often brings financial reward and celebrity . These things are fine to enjoy but not to be taken as the ends or even the meaning of legal practice . If they become the reason for practicing , then they will poison the practice . Losing that humility that created your initial successes inevitably leads to a crisis .
The signs of the impending fall are rarely easy to recognize in ourselves — unless we keep watch for the signs . I was once involved in a trial involving a catastrophic ankle injury to a woman . The client and the jury were blue-collar and neither of them had a yearly income of more than $ 50,000 . Prior to a critical damage witness , we were in an elevator with an expert witness and I listened to a discussion that revolved around the pros and cons of a pair of $ 4,000 Testoni dress shoes . I wondered how long before the crash and burn , but the Testoni dress shoes are not necessarily the symptom . They are nice shoes , but it is elitism and entitlement that is the pathogen . Without humility , success breeds entitlement and juries can sense
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