Every month I host a wine & cheese party at my apartment. At these parties, my friends and I play a game called MAFIA. MAFIA is won through persuasiveness, logical reasoning, and effective evidence gathering—all lawyer skills.

Last week, I invited five law students and seven non-law students to play. I assumed the law students would all fair better than the non-law students because law students are trained to be persuasive, to reason logically, and to effectively gather evidence.

The group played five rounds and the non-law school students won every single round (and got prizes).

But how could that be? Can persuasiveness not be learned at the graduate level? Is it a skill developed early on in life?

Can you teach somebody to reason logically or is logical reasoning an innate part of a person’s IQ?

Technorati Tags: Logical Reasoning, Persuasive, Persuasiveness, Lying, Deception

Share This

Last week, Professor Panter took my Pre-Trial Civil Law class on a field trip to the Richard J. Daily Center, which houses over 120 courtrooms and hearing rooms, and the official law library of the City of Chicago.

The building also features a 50-foot Picasso sculpture in its courtyard.

Professor Panter has got to be one of the most well-connected lawyers in the city of Chicago; he knew just about every lawyer in the building. He asked four of them to give the students in my class—all three of us—career advice. Here were their responses:

1) Read your books and read them carefully.
2) Go into business.
3) Enroll in med school.
4) Do something else.

I’m sure the lawyers were joking, but I didn’t find their ‘advice’ very funny, and here is why:

-Lawyers scored the top spot in a study measuring rates of depression in over 100 occupations. (Eaton, Mandel, and Garrison, “Occupations and the Prevalence of Major Depressive Disorder,” 32 J. Occupational Med. 1083-1132 [1990].)

-Lawyers are about four times more likely to experience clinical depression than the general population. (“Are Lawyers Distressed? . . . And How!” Wash. Stater Bar News [WSBA Lawyers’ Assist. Program Staff] [Feb. 1988] at 13.)

-Clinical depression aside, one in four lawyers will experience feelings of inadequacy and inferiority in personal relationships. Lawyers experience rates of anxiety and social alienation, much higher that that of the general population. (ibid.)

So why are so many lawyers in the Richard J. Daley Center and across the United States so unhappy with their jobs?

Technorati Tags: Depression, Alcoholism, Lawyers

Share This

I’m unable to focus on my Advanced Civil Procedure reading…

…because I keep thinking about how much I’d rather be hanging out with my girlfriend…

…than studying.

Of course, last night, when I went out with my girlfriend, I wasn’t able to enjoy myself because I couldn’t stop thinking about the Advanced Civil Procedure I should have been reading instead of going out.

What’s the secret to balancing one’s professional and personal life?

Share This

Last year, all of my classes (except for Legal Writing) had over 100 students in them. I’m currently taking a class called Pre-Trial Civil Law with just three. We had five on the first day of class, but two dropped during the second week.

The professor, a personal injury plaintiff’s attorney, spoils us by bringing special guests (and, as you can see, pizza) to most of our classes.

Last week, he brought in a court reporter, whose job it is produce official transcripts of court hearings and depositions (testimonies given under oath) by transcribing speech into written form using a stenotype.

The reporter transcribed the mock depositions we took during class, and a few days ago, she e-mailed the transcripts back to us.

I was representing a girl who fell on a trampoline and injured her elbow. The trampoline was owned by the girl’s friend’s parents—the people I was suing for negligence—who were holding a graduation party for their son on the day the injury occurred.

The trampoline came with a Safety Rules sign that read, “Supervise trampoline at all times,” and “Only one jumper at a time.” When the accident occurred, the parents were nowhere near the trampoline and they didn’t have the Safety Rules sign posted.

I took the deposition of Gerald Smith (as played by my professor), the injured girl’s friend’s father.

When I got a bad answer, I pressed Mr. Smith, and I pressed him until I got an answer I liked. Though this type of questioning, I got him to admit that he wasn’t concerned about whether the kids at the graduation party drank and drove:

Q: Were you concerned about them drinking and then driving back home?

A: Kids have to be responsible for themselves.

Q: So you weren’t concerned about the kids drinking and then driving home?

A: It’s really not a problem.

Q: But were you concerned about it?

A: No.

Something tells me that won’t sit well with the jury.

I also Mr. Smith to admit that he had been “put on notice” as to the trampoline’s dangerousness:

Q: Have you ever heard of someone getting hurt on a trampoline?

A: Not really, no.

Q: You’ve never heard of anyone getting injured on a trampoline?

A: I mean, you know, we’ve had little scuffs and bruises over the years but no big deal.

Of course, not all of the deposition went so well. I wasted a lot of time arguing with Mr. Smith:

Q: Do you see how someone could badly injure herself on a trampoline?

A: Not really, no.

Q: You don’t even see how it’s a possibility?

A: No.

Q: Well, when you jump on a trampoline, you jump high—right?

A: You jump normal.

Q: Right. But because it’s a trampoline, you go higher off the ground than you would go if you weren’t on a trampoline.

A: You can only get so high.

Q: But you can get higher than you can get without the trampoline.

A: So what.

Q: So if you fall from a high height, you can hurt yourself.

A: If you fall off a cliff, you could hurt yourself.

Q: And would you let your daughter go on the edge of a cliff?

A: She has gone hiking.

Well, that accomplished nothing.

In retrospect, I should have asked more open-ended questions. I should have asked better follow-up questions. I should have spent more time committing Mr. Smith to his answers.

But this was my first deposition. I’ll get better.

Technorati Tags: Deposition, Questions, Pre-Trial

Share This

Don’t join one—not if you want to get any studying done. Studying in groups is fun, but studying isn’t supposed to be fun and it isn’t supposed to be social. That studying in groups is so palatable should tell you something.

You know how you prefer the elliptical machine to the treadmill? Thats because it’s easier and doesn’t burn as many calories.

You know how you love having muffins for breakfast? That’s because muffins are cake, not a legitimate breakfast food.

The reason studying in groups is fun is that it’s not studying.

But what harm do study groups do? They eat up your time. Every hour you spend “studying” in a study group (i.e., gossiping about your classmates and criticizing your professors) is an hour you could have spent actually studying the law.

Has anybody reading this actually gotten any work done in a study group? Has anybody learned a single thing except for how useless study groups are? I suspect not.

Technorati Tags: Study Groups, Joining a Study Group, Studying Law

Share This

Do lawyers need to have certain personality traits to succeed? Do they have to be rude and pushy? I hope not, but this week in Trial Law, one girl’s politeness completely sabotaged her cross-exam. I’ve known this girl for two years now, and I can tell you that she’s a genuinely kind and gentle person. The trouble is, she couldn’t shake that kindness or gentleness when conducting her cross.

She was playing a defense attorney in a mugging case in which the victim claimed that she got a good look at the accused (my classmate’s client) in the parking lot in which the mugging occurred.

The thing is, the mugging occured at night, and there were no lights in the parking lot. On cross, my classmate needed to get the victim to admit this much.

“You say you got a good look at the man who mugged you?” my classmate asked.

“I got a real good look at him,” the girl playing the witness answered. “I could see him just fine.”

“But didn’t you say it was eleven at night when all this happened?”

“Yeah, but I could see him just fine because there was a light.”

“There was a light in the parking lot?”

“There was a street lamp across the street. It was real bright.”

“Yes, but were there any lights in the parking lot?”

“I’m telling you, I could see the guy just fine.”

“But there were no lights in the parking lot—right?”

“I’m telling you, this street lamp across the street was HUGE. I could see the guy perfectly fine.”

“Okay, moving on . . .”

On cross exam, you have to control the witness. You have to make the witness your bitch. Here, the witness was making the lawyer her bitch.

My classmate needed to put this witness in her place. “Answer the question, yes or no,” she needed to say. “Are you having trouble understanding the question?” she needed to ask. “What part of ‘Were there any lights in the parking lot?’ don’t you understand?” she needed to ask, and she needed to ask it sarcastically.

You have to make the witness’s refusal to answer questions clear to the jury. Juries don’t like evasive witnesses.

And if a witness makes a speech on cross-exam, you’re supposed to say, “Judge, I ask that the volunteered portion of the testimony be stricken from the record.” If the witness does it a second time, you’re supposed to say, “Judge, would you please admonish the witness to answer the question?” And then, if the witness continues making speeches or avoiding the question, the judge can hold the witness in contempt of court.

The thing is, my classmate isn’t just gentle and kind—she’s smart. We went over admonishing witnesses last week, and I saw her taking notes. She knew what she was supposed to do. She must have been too scared to do it. Or maybe she was just too damn ‘kind’–of course, if this were a real case, I don’t think my classmate’s client would have thought she was ‘kind.’

Technorati Tags: Lawyers, Pushy, Rude, Witness Stand, Cross-Exam, Cross-Examination, Defense Attorney

Share This