The Good Lawyer: Seeking Quality in the Practice of Law 1st Edition

I got a copy this week and started flipping through it. I am a practicing attorney and try not to read books like this for pleasure- however this book was enthralling- I read it in two days. I have seen many idealistic and creativity people go to law school and have their souls sucked out- this book substantiated my anecdotal observation. Levitt and Linder trace the root of this factual phenomena to the weight law schools place on the LSAT and I could not agree more. The LSAT is static and sterile test that does nothing to reward life experience or the ability to think on your feet and come up with the creative solutions to solve the legal problems I encounter every day at work.I hear constant whining from recent law graduates about the state of the job market I would argue that there is a desperate need for lawyers. Lawyers who can empathize with their clients, lawyers who understand what is like to be taken advantage of by corporations and government agencies that operate as if they are above the law. Law schools need to develop a model that teaches students not only the law, but one that reinforces every case, involves human being.

This is a great book and very enjoyable to read. It really should be a text book for a class at law school (but it doesn't read like a text book). Great for new and older lawyers. Practical and inspirational.

A must read for every lawyer, law student, or anyone that has an interest in the profession. This book will open up new doors for you in the legal realm.

Interesting perspective on what it means to be a lawyer. Easy read and informative in theory - maybe not so much in practice.

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I read this book on my summer vacation, a time I customarily step back from the daily grind of earning a living as a lawyer and try to reassess where I am heading in the year to come. During the workaday year, the pressure of meeting client demands, payroll and maintaining some shred of sanity often makes me feel as if I am sprinting through a marathon. Linder and Levit don’t offer a way out of the pinstriped rat race. Indeed, they more or less confirm that the legal profession has changed in ways that make it more difficult than ever for good lawyers to be good people. But merely raising the question about how to better meet the demands of a lawyering life with integrity and professionalism is a useful exercise. While the book from time to time reads like a bar association publication – rah, rah team; go, lawyer go –- the authors draw from long careers of their own and from fascinating social science research about such things as persuasion and cognitive bias to offer vantage points from which to evaluate such practices as client counseling and advocacy. Most challenging is their determination to push lawyers into serving as more active counselors to clients in crisis. Yet the discussion here, though steeped in concerns for doing the right things, is entirely tone deaf to recent writing in ethics and moral philosophy. Just how a book of this sort can be writing without reference to the rules of professional conduct, and how they have changed in recent years, is a frustrating mystery. It’s as though the editors, at Oxford University Press – a powerhouse of a publisher, decided to produce half a book. Wring about the good, the just or the true without any critical discussion of what these terms mean is not entirely satisfying. Even so, I am glad I read this book. It has me thinking long and hard about the year to come. I know that I could be a better lawyer. These authors have me deciding how to become one. That was their goal in writing, I suppose. And they have succeeded – no small task.

What does it mean to be a “good lawyer”? Most people automatically equate being good at a job to competency skills, but as artfully shown in this important book by law professors Douglas Linder and Nancy Levit, being a good lawyer goes far beyond that. Good lawyers have integrity, empathy, courage and other attributes that not only set them apart from their peers, but allow them to enjoy a much more rewarding quality of life.The Good Lawyer: Seeking Quality in the Practice of Law is a follow-up to Linder and Levit’s groundbreaking book, The Happy Lawyer: Making a Good Life in the Law, and shares the same strengths: excellent writing, interesting and inspirational anecdotes, and plenty of solid research to back everything up. It’s the kind of book Malcolm Gladwell might write if he went to law school.With so many law students and lawyers searching to find their identities and struggling with the enormous pressures of legal education and the practice of law, both The Good Lawyer and The Happy Lawyer are must reads for both groups. I frequently talk to my law students about insights from The Happy Lawyer and have no doubt I will be adding more from this terrific new book.