as-salaamu alaikum<\/p>\n
More people enjoy law school than care to admit it.\u00a0 I am actually really enjoying myself, especially as my\u00a0second year has brought new challenges beyond learning how to give a professor what he wants during a 3 hour exam.\u00a0 In fact, second year has been amazing and exactly what I had hoped for, giving me the opportunity to know my classmates better and participate in a clinic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since high school, I have been active in student groups.\u00a0 Over the years, I’ve learned how to work with many different types of people, with varying sensitivities and tempraments,\u00a0on national and local boards.\u00a0 So\u00a0I would like to think\u00a0the following\u00a0thoughts are coming\u00a0from\u00a0someone with substantial experience working in teams.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the whole, everyone in law school is very bright and reasonable.\u00a0 Most listen to each other and are genuinely well-adjusted people.\u00a0 There have been a few instances however (I am not referring to anyone in specific) where I have\u00a0noticed certain personality traits that\u00a0I thought\u00a0I would never see after high school graduation.\u00a0 In this post I’d like to point out two difficult personalities that I’ve encountered in the last year:<\/p>\n
1. Impotent yet opinionated.<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n It can be a real challenge working with people who assume that they know better than everyone else, but lack any position,\u00a0pedigree or expertise to be authoritative.\u00a0 The\u00a0opinionated-yet-impotent person can\u00a0be very difficult to reason with, because most disagreements result in crisis:\u00a0the\u00a0discourse polarizes quickly, and language becomes condescending (“I just can’t fathom how you could ever think x<\/em>“).\u00a0 Usually other students are brought into the discussion under the pretense of acting as mediators, even though they are frequently invited to take one person’s side and “gang up” on the other conversant.\u00a0 I think\u00a0the discussion\u00a0becomes tense quickly because the opinionated person is often plagued by insecurity.\u00a0 They compensate for their lack of authority by throwing a fit.\u00a0\u00a0 It is so difficult to watch.<\/p>\n In more general terms, there are\u00a0some law students who have forgotten when to seek\u00a0compromise.\u00a0 I am convinced there are many\u00a0genuinely good people, but perhaps the competitive nature of the 1L year has changed\u00a0a handful of us.\u00a0 I appreciate the need for an adversarial attitude in disagreements — and certainly\u00a0every attorney\u00a0needs to know how to be confrontational when necessary.\u00a0 The problem, though, is that confrontation is frequently unnecessary in student organization work.\u00a0 I still remember what Professor Schecter said during 1L orientation last year, about learning how to “turn off” our lawyering skils.\u00a0 He said that football players don’t go down the sidewalk tackling everyone they come across.\u00a0 Similarly lawyers need to know when to stop being adversarial, and when to seek compromise — in practice and in law school.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The irony in all this is that it\u00a0is easy to hold to one position unrelentingly.\u00a0 It takes a mature, reflective and strategic person to identify places where compromise will actually benefit them, either at that specific moment or some time in the future.<\/p>\n \u00a02. “I speak my mind”<\/em><\/p>\n I have also noticed that some people advertise themselves as those who “speak their minds.”\u00a0 This is an interesting phenomenon, since I always thought that everyone had the right to\u00a0say what was on their mind.\u00a0\u00a0 Why is the\u00a0person who advertises himself\u00a0with this statement unique?\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n With time I’ve come to understand that the\u00a0declaration “I speak my mind” is actually just a euphemism.\u00a0 It is essentially an attempt at obtaining a personality-based license to\u00a0be rude to others.\u00a0 Some people, unfortunately,\u00a0think that good lawyering involves personally offending the other side.\u00a0 They think that being careful with their words shows weakness, and that to be as direct as possible is the best way to show strength.\u00a0 When disagreements arise, they “speak their mind” and cut the other person down, usually with some sort of ad hominem\u00a0remark or condescending tone.\u00a0<\/p>\n So\u00a0my point is that I’ve noticed some (younger) law students who will\u00a0eventually need to learn to litigate without being rude.\u00a0 I doubt every successful litigator has a crass, srcew-you attitude that alienates the others in his firm and the legal community generally.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I am sure\u00a0many do very well while maintaining\u00a0(largely) positive relationships\u00a0with their opposing counsel.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0Unfortunately, most of us in law school either avoid the folks who “speak their minds” or have bought their excuse that somehow their behavior is acceptable because they’ve defined themselves as rude people.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" as-salaamu alaikum More people enjoy law school than care to admit it.\u00a0 I am actually really enjoying myself, especially as my\u00a0second year has brought new challenges beyond learning how to give a professor what he wants during a 3 hour exam.\u00a0 In fact, second year has been amazing and exactly what I had hoped for, 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