CHAPTER 3

Change Agents for the Profession

Introverts and otherwise quiet advocates are well poised to play an influential role in the legal profession through active listening, analytical thinking, empathy, impactful legal writing, and creative problem-solving. This chapter links effective lawyering traits with the assets many introverts and other quiet individuals bring to the table.

COUNSELORS-AT-LAW

Lawyers perform multiple intellectual activities and serve varied tactical and substantive roles: issue-identifier, fact-gatherer, researcher, analyst, writer, editor, advisor, strategist, negotiator, and advocate. We call ourselves counselors-at-law. “Approach the bench, counselor,” judges direct. To “counsel” means “to provide wisdom and advice regarding the judgment and conduct of another.”169 In the legal context, “to counsel is to apply intelligence, experience and forethought to the client’s legal challenges resulting in guidance, opinion, suggestion, creativity, ingenuity and assurance as the client decides how to manage these business matters.”170 Depending on a lawyer’s subject matter area of practice, she might counsel owners of a mom-and-pop grocery store resisting a forced property sale, a spouse seeking a divorce from an abusive partner, or a person accused of a crime subject to jail time—all stressful scenarios that, purely based on the human element, might naturally invoke empathy in the lawyer. Or, the attorney might represent a technology corporation on the verge of a lucrative merger, a hospital purchasing land for an expansion project, or (like my law practice) a construction contractor embroiled in a conflict with a project owner over lack of payment—circumstances which, at first glance, seem to focus solely on money rather than emotion. However, across the spectrum of corporate, social justice, public interest, and individual representation, all mindful lawyers listen to their clients to identify goals, empathize with individuals to understand fears or concerns about adverse outcomes, and go deeper than the obvious surface legal issues to unearth personality conflicts or emotional triggers posing removable barriers to a successful negotiation or conflict resolution.

Often, law students and lawyers consider the law in terms of absolutes: “black letter law,” right or wrong, or clear non-negotiable rules with checklists of elements. Yet every legal matter, whether manifested in a transaction or a dispute, is marked by shades, nuances, and layers. The best lawyers keep open minds and step into these intellectual and emotional shadows to elucidate creative outcomes. Unfortunately, the traditional way we teach and train lawyers can reinforce the notion that law is rational and unemotional; some critics say, “rather than broadening a student’s mind and heart, legal training tends to narrow the mind and deaden the emotions.”171 That cause-and-effect is easily reversible, with quiet lawyers leading the charge through empathy, intellectual humility, and an inclusive mindset.

The business cards of some lawyers read “Attorney and Counselor-at-Law.” Why two labels? Attorney Kevin Houchin explains the difference: “As an attorney I’m in the game calling plays on the field as an agent,” but “[a]s a counselor I’m a coach—an expert trusted advisor directing from the sidelines.”172 Houchin suggests that “it’s more valuable to be a counselor when doing the work is developmental and something that will help the client grow as a person or a professional.”173 Lawyer Jack W. Burtch, Jr. agrees, sharing how he discovered his counseling role early in his legal career:

I was a new lawyer. I wasn’t a legal genius, but I had blundered onto the revelation that not every legal problem has a legal solution … In order to discern client goals, the lawyer has to somehow get inside the client’s head and view the issue through the client’s eyes. In modern legal counseling theory, this is known as “client-centered counseling.” 174

Drawing upon the psychological theory of eminent American psychologist Carl Rogers, Burtch explains that the lawyer-as-counselor’s “job is to show empathy, respect, and understanding so clients can make healthy decisions for themselves …”175 The best legal counselors listen, empathize, process information, and problem-solve.176 Attorney Thomas J. Ryan highlights that “[i]t is this listening, caring, and advising aspect of what we do that sets us apart from other professions.”177 Ryan offers an optimistic view of the lawyer’s role as counselor:

In my particular practice, I have found that emphasizing my role as counselor builds goodwill, trust, and strong, long-term client relationships. In this very real sense, what is good for those who seek our help, can be good for us and, to be sure, for society. As lawyers, we are part of the integral system of dispute resolution that ideally serves to make human relations and commerce orderly and better. When we act as counselors, we are reaching out to make this system work even better.178

No matter what type of law we practice—from community public interest to the global corporate stage—effective counselors focus on how the law affects human beings.

My law practice involved construction projects, in which owners and contractors entered into agreements to build power plants, bridges, tunnels, hospitals, assisted-living facilities, sports stadiums, and other large structures. The contractual relationships typically progressed like this: An owner bought a plot of land. Architects and engineers designed the structure to be erected on the property. The owner hired a contractor to build the edifice or facility. The contractor engaged subcontractors, material suppliers, and laborers. The project commenced. When legal conflicts arose on the construction job, it often seemed like the answers should be black-and-white—right there in the blueprints, the drawings, the specifications, the contract, or the project correspondence. But inevitably, it was the human component that underlay each construction dispute: the hard-working individuals physically swinging hammers, maneuvering cranes, moving dirt, pouring concrete, sawing wood, laying bricks, turning screwdrivers, checking schedules, managing delays, writing checks, maintaining budgets, auditing costs, etc. The lawyers could argue all they wanted about contractual language but sometimes, to resolve a dispute, it was more important to understand exactly what was happening on a random Tuesday on the job when rain pelted, the trucks containing materials and supplies arrived late, the design was not working although no one could figure out why, stress levels escalated, project personnel fired off emails they wish they hadn’t, and the accusations and finger-pointing began.

For a lawyer whose job requires, first, reading a lengthy, sometimes 80-page construction contract, second, learning the technical steps required to fabricate the complicated structure and, third, figuring out how to explain such contract language and engineering techniques in layperson’s terms to a trier-of-fact, the lawyer also must take the time to listen to the people working in the trenches to understand the reality and truth about what is driving the conflict. No matter how corporate or financially driven a case might seem on the surface, or how rough-and-tumble the industry, real listening requires empathy for the human beings involved. Even in a seemingly unemotional negotiation or litigation, consideration of the human elements at play can move the legal matter forward for everyone, through collaborative decision-making and conflict resolution.

University of California, Berkeley professors (now emerita and emeritus) Marjorie Shultz and Sheldon Zedeck conducted an empirical study of lawyers, professors, law students, judges, and clients to derive a list of “lawyering effectiveness factors.”179 A review of the Shultz-Zedeck factors illuminates how introverts and other quiet law students and lawyers offer important assets to the legal community. Shultz and Zedeck’s inventory includes, among many others, the following characteristics of an effective lawyer:

As explained further below, research indicates that many introverted, shy, and socially anxious people possess the foregoing highly sought-after gifts of empathy, creativity, listening, and self-discovery. Just as Socrates and the Seven Sages encouraged individuals to “know thyself,” many quiet advocates already have the instinct for self-reflection that will serve them well in the role of a counselor for others.

THE ROLE OF EMPATHY IN LEGAL EDUCATION AND PRACTICE

As the tectonic plates of legal education and practice continue to shift, some law professors and practitioners have called for a greater emphasis on empathy in law teaching and training: great news for the quiet advocate. First, it is important to note the difference between sympathy and empathy. Sympathy is “the feeling that you care about and are sorry about someone else’s trouble, grief, misfortune.”180 In contrast, empathy is “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another.”181 As explained on the website TheMindUnleashed.com, “[s]ympathy is the ability to express ‘culturally acceptable’ condolences to another[’]s plight,” while “[e]mpathy is the ability to place yourself in someone else’s shoes and understand [and] relate as best as you can to how that person feels in the situation.”182 Empathy goes deeper than sympathy. It might demand more conscious effort, patience, and attention. Empathy can be exercised, in a professional manner, through listening, being open-minded to someone else’s life trajectory, considering how a particular circumstance might have affected another person (even if the listener would have reacted differently under similar conditions), and not projecting one’s personal biases onto the other individual. Notably, lawyers like Pooja Kothari, Esq., founder of a consulting company called Boundless Awareness,183 are dedicated to helping lawyers identify implicit biases in interacting with clients, colleagues, and other participants in our justice system. A lawyer can be empathetic without being overly emotional or soft, and in doing so, can gain a deeper understanding of the client’s influences, perceptions, experiences, goals, struggles, and concerns.

Various experts provide definitions of empathy that are useful for the legal profession in the contexts of persuasion, influence, compromise, and conflict resolution:

Traditional legal education has not focused on empathy as a lawyering competency; instead, the core doctrinal curriculum orbits around rules, analysis, and critical thinking. Perhaps teaching doctrine and introducing empathy to aspiring attorneys might have been regarded by some educators as mutually exclusive pedagogical pursuits, or the discussion of empathy deemed too “soft” for the rigors of legal education. Some law professors like Professor Ian Gallacher, of Syracuse University College of Law, say “current legal education practices systematically eliminate empathy from law students … [T]his is a mistake that can affect a lawyer’s ability to communicate with juries, clients, and the other non-lawyers with whom a lawyer comes into contact.”187 Professor Rosenberg explains that empathy requires a “momentary suspension of most of the key cognitive functions we teach (or at least try to teach) in law school”; to feel empathy, we must relinquish the drive to judge, size-up, critique, assess, and solve.188

Professor Gallacher urges that “[e]mpathy—just as much as the knowledge of applicable laws and rules and an ability to synthesize and distinguish precedent—is a core lawyering skill.”189 Professor Rosenberg concurs that teaching law students “how to listen and observe, how to know one’s behavior and its effect on others, how to know and modify one’s own goals, and how to communicate with others effectively” is useful in “negotiation, mediation, client counseling, dealing with other attorneys in one’s own firm, and dealing with opposing counsel.”190 Attorney Gould agrees: “Just as empathy is used in marketing, sales, and product development, it has application not only to the client interview and client development, but also to deposition practice, negotiating with our law partners, settlement discussions, and a host of other processes we engage in as lawyers.”191

With this foundation, some law professors and members of the bar lobby that “[l]aw schools should reverse course and start emphasizing the value of empathy together with the more traditional logic-based approach to legal analysis.”192 Indeed, Gould indicates that “some predict that empathy is the key ingredient to the future of law practice.”193 I concur: an attorney can be simultaneously thoughtful, transformative, influential, brilliant, strong, and empathetic. And quiet lawyers are uniquely poised to achieve just that.

THE ROLE OF INTELLECTUAL HUMILITY IN LEGAL EDUCATION AND PRACTICE

In addition to empathy, an individual’s capacity for intellectual humility can make all the difference in teaching, learning, and interacting with others to effect positive personal development, conflict resolution, and societal change. Already inclined toward internal reflection, introverted and other quiet law students and lawyers are ideal agents to expand the role of intellectual humility in improving the legal profession.

In Socrates’ view, it is impossible to be intellectual without intellectual humility.194 Former justice of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, William A. Bablitch defines intellectual humility as “an awareness of what we do not know, and an awareness that what we think we know might well be incorrect. This is particularly important when it comes to the law. The law has a funny way of jumping up and biting you right where it hurts at the most unexpected times.”195 Legal scholars note that the best judges demonstrate intellectual humility.196 Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter said, “[t]he indispensable judicial requisite is intellectual humility.”197 Others urge that intellectual humility is a necessary constituent to foster a global legal community198 as “[t]he essence of humility is treating other things—especially other people—as if they really matter.”199 In legal education and practice, where we value critical thinking, both empathy and intellectual humility are crucial. Attorney Phillip Miller asserts that “[c]ritical thinking without fair-mindedness, humility, or empathy is flawed, and while it may seem brilliant to you or me, it may be no more than intellectual manipulation or trickery to jurors.”200 Unfortunately, our American culture often discourages humility and instead drives ego.201

Introverts and other quiet individuals already geared toward constant internal self-evaluation can lead the charge to promote an intellectually humble mindset in the law. Importantly, intellectual humility does not connote weakness, or better said, “[b]eing humble does not mean being a doormat.”202 Instead, humility is a platform of strength upon which we can enhance our profession by listening to and being open to one another’s creative ideas about the law.

QUIET LAWYERS AS CHANGE AGENTS

Until I started my personal reinvention as a proudly introverted lawyer, I fixated on my perceived weaknesses: extreme blushing whenever I was the focus of attention (and sometimes for no reason at all), shaky voicing of nascent opinions to a group, protracted decision-making, and inability to answer rapid-fire legal questions without reflecting and internally vetting my answers. Only through extensive research did I finally understand that my innate inclination to listen and absorb first (before speaking), experience empathy (not always, but more often than not) for others who foster and exude anxiety (even for some volatile bosses and difficult counsel), focus when researching challenging legal problems, and deep-dive into legal writing projects are my greatest assets. And the other stuff? Well, by working the seven-step process in the second half of this book, I reinvented a stronger, more amplified, and less anxious me.

As Dr. Laney points out, introverts “bring important attributes to the party—the ability to focus deeply, an understanding of how a change will affect everyone involved, the capacity to observe, a propensity for thinking outside the box, the strength to make unpopular decisions, and the potential to slow the world down a notch.”203 Introvert assets include “concentration, loyalty, thoughtfulness, persistence, tough-mindedness, creativity, originality, foresight, and a wide range of knowledge.”204 Further, science links introversion and an empathetic mindset. Dr. Kozak indicates that “[i]ntroverts can be highly sensitive to the needs of others.”205 He explains that “[t]he ability to sit still can nurture compassion and empathy.”206 Notably, “[m]any introverts go into fields where empathy skills are required—like counseling. It’s a natural fit.”207

Experts further confirm that empathy and sensitivity to others are not only introvert traits but also are shared by many shy and socially anxious individuals. M. F. Fensholt, author of The Francis Effect: The Real Reason You Hate Public Speaking and How to Get Over It, reports that “[c]reativity and emotional sensitivity are two positive traits often shared by people who experience anxiety.”208 Flowers, author of The Mindful Path Through Shyness, notes that shyness is a “source of empathy and compassion.”209 Interestingly, Anna LeMind, staff writer for the website TheMindUnleashed.com, reports:

[R]esearchers from the University of Haifa’s Department of Psychology, Haifa, Israel, studied the empathy tendencies of people with social anxiety and found “elevated mentalizing and empathic abilities.” This means that those who suffered from this disorder had higher psycho-social awareness and thus showed “sensitivity and attentiveness to other people’s states of mind.”210

Further, Erika B. Hilliard, MSW, RSW, author of Living Fully with Shyness and Social Anxiety, describes sensitivity as “that fabulous quality that often accompanies shyness and social anxiety.”211 She encourages that “[a] lot of good qualities go along with shyness. There is sensitivity to nuances, to subtle differences. There is empathy for others.”212

An attorney’s capacity for empathy and intellectual humility through listening to others can be a transformational tool in conflict resolution, transactional engagement, and persuasive advocacy. Dr. Kahnweiler explains that, “Influence is not about forcing people to come to see things your way but about learning from others and negotiating a shared solution. This approach is well suited to the introvert temperament. It involves patience, planning, and perseverance. If we all think that the only way to get things done is to shout louder and louder and take up more center-stage space, we’ll miss the opportunities to listen, learn, and respond thoughtfully.”213 She further emphasizes, “Ironically, a powerful tool for influencing people is silence.”214

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Beyond empathy and intellectual humility, introvert gifts correspond directly to the following day-to-day lawyering tasks: active listening, fact-gathering, researching, analyzing, creative problem-solving, legal writing, persuading, resolving conflicts, and impactfully communicating when ready.

Active Listening

To accurately pinpoint a client’s legal issue and appropriately address an opportunity, problem, or conflict, law students and lawyers first must listen—either to a professor, a supervisor, a colleague, the client, opposing counsel, a witness, or the judge. Instead of racing to speak, introverts “listen carefully”;215 they “have the gift of attention and when [they] learn to give it, it can be gratefully received in a manner which is extraordinarily transformative.”216 A U2 lyric from the song Every Breaking Wave reminds us, “It’s hard to listen while you preach.”217 By naturally resisting adding unnecessary static to a dialogue, introverted law students and lawyers can hear what other human beings say, one-on-one or in group settings, noting themes and patterns. While others talk—often over one another—“introverts are more likely to listen to and process the ideas of an eager team in a deeply engaged way.”218 Cain explains, “Because of their inclination to listen to others and lack of interest in dominating social situations, introverts are more likely to hear and implement suggestions.”219 A listening lawyer can cut through the clamor of competing voices, hear the underlying messages being conveyed, and synthesize them for use in legal analysis. By listening, a lawyer also establishes trust, helps clients move through fears (even lurking within outwardly confident corporate executives), and facilitates truth-sharing. By striving to understand the relationship, the project, the transaction, or the catastrophic event from the individual’s point-of-view, and then the opponent’s point-of-view, the listening lawyer might identify a tack, a strategy, or an approach that no one previously had considered.

Fact-Gathering

Lawyers grasp the storyline of a client’s legal dilemma by immersing themselves in the client’s factual circumstances, interviewing client representatives and witnesses, visiting sites such as accident locations or environmental spills, viewing photographs or videos, and poring over reams of written records. Introverts are good perceivers and fact-gatherers. Dr. Kahnweiler indicates, “Introverts take the time to gather pertinent facts so they can present a very strong case for a new way of thinking or a course of action.”220

Introverts can be more tuned in than some extroverted counterparts to the visual sights, smells, temperatures, details, tastes, and competing sounds in a fact-gathering environment. On a recent vacation, I meandered with a lively friend through the cobblestones of bustling Rome, a cornucopia of sensory treasures in the blaring August heat. While my extroverted pal chatted, I watched bark floating along the shoreline of the Tiber River, smelled chestnuts roasting on a cast iron sidewalk grill, heard the lilt of street vendors taking espresso orders, salivated at pastel pillows of gelato, and ran my fingers along ancient graffiti carvings etched in stone park benches. When we collapsed into wicker seats at a pizzeria in Trastevere, ordering a steamy hot margarita pizza and an ice-cold Peroni, she admitted she had been so busy regaling me with the time she hiked a mountain in Colorado, she hadn’t noticed any of the sensory items I mentioned.

In the legal context, senior attorneys typically dispatch junior associates on investigative trips to gather case facts. As a young attorney, I traveled to a shipyard to photograph a rusted and pitted cruise ship rotor and touch the gravelly substance mistakenly used to clean it. I visited a wastewater treatment plant to review documents (that scent, unforgettable). I spent a sweaty few days in a storage warehouse in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where all the files reeked of cigarette smoke. Those documents, sights, senses, and smells enlivened the client’s case. The facts jumped off the pictures and pages, enabling me to write about them with fervor. When I later asked extroverted counterparts to recall document review experiences, they recounted the drudgery of paper cuts and Post-it notes.

In addition to empathy, introverts can use their comfort within silence221 as an asset in fact-gathering. Extroverts often are not as accustomed to or at ease with silence, and naturally might fill space with words. One of the most effective techniques I adopted as an introverted deposition-taker—a fact-gathering task—was simply to stop talking. I invoked the mantra of my wonderful Washington, DC-based therapist, Barbara Roberts: “Tolerate the discomfort.”222 In a deposition, a lawyer asks a witness—the deponent—questions. Opposing counsel periodically objects to the form of the questions, and the deponent answers the questions, either directly or artfully dodging the probing. In many depositions of strong-willed deponents represented by extroverted counsel, silence triggered my opponents’ and counterparts’ discomfort, yet soothed mine. Instead of pushing forward into each verbal conflict with an immediate follow-up question, I experimented with sitting quietly, reviewing my carefully typed deposition outline to decide my next avenue of inquiry. Many deponents reacted by filling the verbal void, chatting and chattering about case facts, much to the dismay of their jumpy attorneys. Through silence, I reasserted control of the deposition, gathered robust facts, and obtained more effective answers to use in resolving the case.

Creative Researching

Sometimes legal rules are clear and muster into a neat checklist of required elements, but more often they resemble a murky bog. During the research process, a law firm partner might summon a young associate to his office and instruct, “Find me a case that says X! There has to be one out there.” The associate races back to her office, jumps on Westlaw, Lexis, or Bloomberg Law, and scours judicial precedent for that one perfect case. That judicial unicorn might not exist. Good researchers are creative and flexible—happy news for introverted lawyers.

Indeed, “[a]rguments have been made for the superior creativity of introverts.”223 Introverts possess the natural lone wolf working style and internal trial-and-error method of intellectual processing necessary to take a complicated legal research issue, enter the quiet research zone alone, and dig like an archaeologist for a stubborn buried answer. Dr. Laney reiterates that “[i]ntroverted people who balance their energy have perseverance and the ability to think independently, focus deeply, and work creatively”224—ideal traits for legal researchers.

Analytical Thinking

When legal answers are not obvious, or the facts or rules seemingly disfavor a client, the best lawyers think harder: further good news for introverts. As Tanner points out, “The introvert, then, is a wrestler. That is what happens in the quiet place. Here is pondering and noticing, processing and formulating, wondering and delight … This is introvert practice and with care it is a great gift, both in the fruit and the process that is shared with others.”225 Introverts go deeper than surface analysis; they “live deeply and are drawn to wisdom. [They] wrestle and are not easily satisfied with half-answers.”226

“Groupthink” is defined as “a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome.”227 Introverts resist “groupthink” and instead seek quiet to scrunch up their faces and sort through difficult topics free of outside influence; “[a] loud voice can promote groupthink more than considered critical analysis.”228 Introverts can be the foil to groupthink. Indeed, Dr. Kozak emphasizes that “[s]olitude is a necessary ingredient for the creative process, and solitude helps to avoid the biasing effects of groupthink.”229

Additionally, an introvert’s penchant for privacy to reflect on challenging concepts can have a positive ripple effect on others who have not yet learned how to cleave a quiet refuge. Tanner suggests, “The internal process of reflection and engagement needs space, which means that introverts also are able to curate space for others.”230

Creative Problem-Solving

Law is about solving conundrums, frequently tough ones with no obvious answer. Introverts can demonstrate remarkable creativity, not only in legal research, but in developing solutions to seemingly insurmountable challenges. Experts opine that introverts—by curtaining off external distractions—effectively tap into innovation, resourcefulness, and ingenuity. Undeniably, “[c]reative expression takes undistracted time,”231 and introverts excel at carving out quiet reflective space and blocks of uninterrupted time for concentration. Dr. Kozak notes that quiet can spark “imagination,”232 a spirit of inspiration and inventiveness. Cain concurs, “[I]ntroverts prefer to work independently, and solitude can be a catalyst to innovation.”233

Cain invokes a vivid image of Sir Isaac Newton when she describes the introvert’s creative process: “[T]he most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted… [A] person sitting quietly under a tree in the backyard, while everyone else is clinking glasses on the patio, is more likely to have an apple land on his head.”234 Similarly, Dr. Helgoe advises, “An introvert who sits back in a meeting, taking in the arguments, dreamily reflecting on the big picture, may be seen as not contributing—that is, until he works out the solution that all the contributors missed.”235 Some experts contend that introverts “are better at critical thinking and solving problems that require insight,”236 and “the more creative people tend to be socially poised introverts.”237

I have worked with lawyers—on both my side of a case and the opposing side—who approach every new client matter the same way: Take an aggressive stance on each issue, fight about even the most inconsequential discovery matter, bury the opposing party with discovery requests and motions, write briefs that accuse the other side of nefarious behavior at every turn, constantly threaten sanctions, etc. This type of case strategy is usually uncreative. The team doesn’t invest the time to get to know the individuals and personalities involved. The mantra is: Fight, fight, fight, fight, win … or sometimes lose, and lose big. I am not suggesting that an aggressive litigation stance is wrong; I take hardline positions frequently in my legal writing, and I always prefer to be on offense rather than defense. However, experts suggest that empathy for others, and a good dose of intellectual humility,238 can stimulate creativity,239 especially in the area of problem-solving. Exiting our narrowly focused personal world to step into the universe of another can spark new ideas or alternative approaches to conflict resolution in the law.

Legal Writing

Lawyers write. Every day. Whether through emails, internal legal research and strategy memoranda, communications with clients or opposing counsel, transactional agreement term sheets, proposed contract language, litigation-oriented pleadings, discovery requests, or briefs, lawyers transform every client matter through the written word. For litigators and transactional lawyers alike, legal writing is a potent weapon in the advocacy arsenal, and an essential lawyering competency perfectly suited to the introvert temperament.

Cain notes that introverts “often feel as if they express themselves better in writing than in conversation.”240 Dr. Kozak agrees that many introverts favor writing over speaking.241 Dr. Kahnweiler proffers writing as a formidable tool for introverts; “[b]ecause introverts tend to prefer writing to talking, they often tap into writing as a powerful influencing strength.”242 Authors Anne Tyler, Jessamyn West, and Bernard Cornwell reiterate that writing is a “solitary occupation.” Likewise, author John Green once said, “Writing is something you do alone. It’s a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but don’t want to make eye contact while telling it.”243 Legal writing offers quiet law students and lawyers the perfect milieu to think, analyze, edit, rephrase, test thoughts, and be choosy with words. An introvert who loves the art and science of legal writing inescapably will play a pivotal role in every client representation.

Professor Gallacher draws a thoughtful connection between writing and empathy, stating, “Writing is an empathetic act, and the goal of persuasive writers is to place themselves in their audience’s minds in order to understand how best to influence them while they make their decisions.”244 He explains:

Writing, after all, is—or should be—an exercise in applied empathy. In order to persuade a reader of something, whether it be the accuracy of a set of facts, the soundness of a legal interpretation, or the believability of a fictional account, a writer must attempt to place him or herself in the mind of the reader and try to imagine the reader’s response to the written material.245

As legal writers, we consider our audience, and what moves our reader. Cultivating empathy makes us more effective legal writers. Quiet law students and lawyers who already are drawn to legal writing over oral advocacy—and who understand the impact of empathy—can use the written word as a powerful vehicle to amplify their authentic voices.

Persuading, and Resolving Conflicts

Whether through writing, or in person through a transactional negotiation or litigation-oriented debate, at some point every introverted lawyer will be called to influence and persuade other human beings. An introvert’s capacity for empathy is a valuable endowment in persuasion. Professor Gallacher notes:

A lawyer who can project him or herself into the thoughts of another and understand how that person—juror, witness, judge, or other lawyer, for example—is thinking has the ability to calibrate language, posture, and gesture in a manner calculated to persuade the subject to believe whatever argument the lawyer is making. Conversely, a lawyer who fails to make this empathic connection with others will find it much more difficult—perhaps even impossible—to communicate effectively and persuasively, especially with non-lawyers.246

As Dr. Kahnweiler notes, “[I]ntroverts can be highly effective influencers when they stop trying to act like extroverts and instead make the most of their natural, quiet strengths.”247 Dr. Laney highlights the differences in the way introverts and extroverts argue: “Extroverts often argue in a win-lose style. They emphasize being right. Sometimes this leaves the other person (often the introvert) feeling wrong. Many introverts argue in a win-win style. They want each person’s ideas to be heard. In general, introverts tend to question more and criticize less.”248 Having a win-win mentality does not make an introvert weak; it makes him smart. Introverted law students and attorneys can use their listening skills, thoughtful analysis, comfort with silence, and careful choice of words to make a persuasive impact when they are ready to speak.

An introvert’s empathic nature also is an exceptional asset in negotiation toward conflict resolution. In bargaining for a resolution or settlement of a conflict, “it is important for each side to understand their adversary’s needs for the purpose of knowing what will satisfy them.”249 Professor Rosenberg contends that empathy enhances credibility in negotiation: “[I]f one can respond empathetically, that response alone will both generate good will and add to the credibility of the empathic listener. Ultimately, it makes it more likely that the empathic person can get what she wants.”250

Impactfully Communicating

Eventually, even introverts must speak, which on occasion still can feel like a monumental energy drain. In 2013, NBC’s Today Show reported a statistic from psychiatrist Louann Brizendine, M.D., who said that “the average woman speaks about 20,000 words a day, while the average man utters about 7,000.”251 It would be interesting to study the number of words spoken, respectively, by extroverts and introverts on an average day. As a female introvert who spends 80 percent of the work week alone, I easily undercut the cited male average.252

Choosy speech is an elegant characteristic of introverts. As Tanner notes, introverts “will in a few words pin down a conversation that has been dancing around an issue for much time. To learn to speak does not necessitate learning to be talkative.”253 My dad, an Episcopal minister, is a fellow quiet soul. When the man finally speaks, people listen. He can sum up in one sentence what a politician or policymaker might take an hour to convey.

In the legal context, introverts might struggle to wedge a word into a rapid-fire volley of extroverted advocates or resist the energy depletion required to step into a debate. With the right advance thinking, careful deliberation, and thoughtful writing, an introverted lawyer’s ideas revealed through selective speech can be pure magic.

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Of course, many extroverts also are skilled in the aforementioned lawyering competencies. Their introverted counterparts, however, if given quiet space to think, might burrow even more deeply into a challenging legal concept or conflict, allowing refreshing solutions to bud, away from the noise of the legal world. Overall, introverts should be more heralded in the profession as effective counselors-at-law. As Dembling encourages, “those who slow down, sit down, and look us in the eye might see that our inner flame burns brightly and puts out some heat.”254 With enhanced self-awareness and the strategic application of techniques described in the second half of this book, quiet individuals can channel their inherent traits—which once might have been perceived as weaknesses in the combative legal world—into mighty strengths.