In Sydney, Australia at the IBA annual conference earlier this month, Muir participated on a great panel with an energized audience on the topic of successfully making changes in our careers. Here are two of the recent articles in Lawyers Weekly: “How to Fail Well” and “The Pursuit of Happiness in the Law.” One of the takeaways was… Continue Reading
YourABA published a Q&A with author Ronda Muir today about her new book, Beyond Smart: Lawyering with Emotional Intelligence. Check it out HERE.… Continue Reading
I am pleased to announce that (along with the eclipse) Beyond Smart: Lawyering with Emotional Intelligence is available as of yesterday here on the ABA Shop website. For a discount, use Code RMUIR10 through December 31, 2017. This is the first comprehensive guide to understanding, using and raising emotional intelligence in the unique context of law practice. It… Continue Reading
So we realize the depth and breadth of the competition that artificially intelligent technology can pose to our traditional legal practices. We are, after all, not able to access as many sources and certainly not as fast and perhaps not as sophisticated in our analysis logarithms as some machines are. Then again, we have our… Continue Reading
Speaking of ethical decisions, those who would be whistleblowers are usually caught by emotional crosswinds, often mentioning the difficulty they have in dealing with their own mixed emotions. As researchers concluded in “The Role of Emotional Intelligence in Ethical Decision Making at Work,” “Whistleblowing involves an intrapersonal conflict—an internal struggle of conflicting emotions that need… Continue Reading
An amendment to Rule 8.4(g) to the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, first circulated in December 2015 and then adopted on August 3, 2016, prohibits lawyers while practicing law from engaging in conduct they “know or reasonably should know” constitutes harassment or discrimination based on “race, sex, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender… Continue Reading
Muir appeared on a LegalWomen panel entitled “Communicating Unpopular Points of View in a Motivating Manner” at ALM LegalWeek on Thursday, February 2. The panel discussed different aspects of effective communication and the challenges lawyers and women lawyers face.… Continue Reading
From Law People Management to you and yours, we wish you peace, prosperity and good health during the holidays and throughout the New Year. To that end, we are pleased to announce the publication by the American Bar Association of our book The Emotional Intelligence Edge for 21st Century Lawyers currently scheduled for summer of… Continue Reading
As noted in our ever-popular posts Lawyers Lusting After Clients and Their Spouses and Addendum to Lust, forum shopping should be on your mind if you’re looking for some nookie from a client. California may soon become one of the “don’t-even-think-about-it” states. The California Bar Association has proposed that any sexual relationship arising between a lawyer and his/her client… Continue Reading
Starting today, Monday, November 28, you can listen to a podcast on Gen Why Lawyer that Muir contributed to discussing the issues around the Female Lawyer Exodus, particularly as it relates to Millennials, by going here. You can also link to the podcast on iTunes here.… Continue Reading
Here’s a thought that will hopefully make us all more likable around the Thanksgiving turkey: “A growing body of research suggests that the way to influence—and to lead—is to begin with expressing emotional warmth.” That is the conclusion–probably surprising to the legal crowd–of an interesting research study looking at what gives leaders the power of… Continue Reading
Having just finished an interesting assignment helping a firm resolve conflict among its ranks, I am freshly reminded of what it is that puts lawyers into conflict and then keeps them there. So please indulge me in this seat-of-the-pants riff (for the record, none of which, of course, applies to any of my clients). Lawyers are on… Continue Reading
In anticipation of a white paper on the persistent question of why there isn’t greater gender diversity in the practice of law, here’s a look at a few of the salient points: Women have comprised roughly half of law graduates for a number of decades, and have been consistently over-represented at the top of their… Continue Reading
One of the ways to improve our emotional intelligence, and therefore improve our decision-making, our productivity. our personal interactions and our well-being, is to expand our vocabulary with respect to emotions. We experience hundreds of shades of emotion every day. While five to seven emotions are considered basic, combinations of those emotions blend together to… Continue Reading
In our 2013 entry “The Law: What’s Love Got To Do With It?“, we noted the movement toward integrative law, which “Pauline Tesler, director of the Integrative Law Institute, believes… is the next ‘huge wave coming to the legal profession.’ As she explains, this type of practice is aimed at ‘out-of-court solutions and the well-being of… Continue Reading
The Center for Creative Leadership’s 2013 White Paper on “The Surprising Truth about What Drives Stress and How Leaders Build Resilience” lists stress and burnout as the top two issues leaders worldwide wrestle with. “Burnout” is a syndrome caused by excessive stress which can produce physical, emotional and mental exhaustion. Burnout is the end game… Continue Reading
Shake off that New Year’s hangover–a whole new year lies ahead for making progress in your career! To help you start out right, former President of the College of Law Practice Management Merrilyn Astin Tarlton has put together 49-Tips-for-the-New-Lawyer, which are good advice for the not-so-new lawyer, as well. Print them out, hang them on your… Continue Reading
World Mental Health Day was Friday, October 10th. How did yours go? Did your firm or department remind you not to work such long hours that you lose your critical thinking edge or alienate the personal ties that keep you grounded and productive? Did you get a refresher on how to deal with stress and its… Continue Reading
Stephen Glass, the infamous journalist whose writing career collapsed under an avalanche of lies, is not being allowed to practice law in California. The California Supreme Court concluded early this year that Glass, then a law clerk for a Beverly Hills plaintiffs firm, had failed to meet “his heavy burden of demonstrating rehabilitation.” Glass admitted to fabricating parts of… Continue Reading
On February 21-22 of this year, the Boyd School of Law and Saltman Center for Conflict Resolution at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas held a very interesting conference on Psychology and Lawyering. Attendance and enthusiasm were high and organizers anticipate future conferences well-fueled with the expanding research on these related areas. Here are some… Continue Reading
Jennifer Alvey “is a recovering lawyer who was once one of the 20% of Feelers in law firms.” Now she coaches other lawyers in the Nashville area, many of whom are miserable practicing law. In her post “Why Are There So Many Asshole Lawyers?”, she tells it straight about her and her clients’ experiences in “dysfunctional”… Continue Reading
Discrimination comes in all forms. In our 2011 entry on the dismissal of an EEOC suit against Bloomberg, we noted that Karen Lockwood, a senior female partner in Howrey, a Washington D.C. firm and then president of the D.C. Women’s Bar Association, made a distinction between discrimination and unconscious bias: “Law firms are way beyond discrimination…… Continue Reading
While our last posts have discussed the law and warmth, love, compassion, niceness and caring, there remains the unspoken kind of ardor. No, not that one. The one between lawyers and their clients. One of the most all-time popular posts on this blog continues to be “Practical Practice Tips: Lawyers Lusting After Clients and Their Spouses.” … Continue Reading
Law firm and law department managers who are using “caring” management strategies in response to the economic downturn are examples of playing nicely in the legal sandbox. And research demonstrates that, again, being nice pays off. According to a recent study by Grdinovac and Yancey entitled “How organizational adaptations to recession relate to organizational commitment,” published… Continue Reading
