Legal Research

"The Essential Little Book of Great Lawyering"

Posted by Julie A. Fleming: "The Essential Little Book of Great Lawyering [by James A. Durham] is aptly named:  at just 52 pages (including the title page, copyright, and table of contents), you'll need less than an hour to discover the essential skills of great lawyering.  Some readers may be wondering why anyone would need a book to learn what great lawyering is, and some may be thinking that great lawyering "obviously" means possessing enormous technical expertise, good judgment, and years of experience in which to develop those attributes.  That is what most lawyers mean by great lawyering.  But what do clients mean?

According to Durham's client interviews, a great lawyer is one who knows the law and has "become a lawyer that people trust above all others, and . . . to whom they turn when they (or people they know) have any kind of problem...

The Essential Little Book manages to go beyond those generic words to offer specific examples of what lawyers must do to succeed fully in practice...

One of the key mistakes I make is believing that "being a great lawyer" (as measured by technical expertise) is all that's necessary to build a successful practice...

The Essential Little Book should be required reading for lawyers.  Between now and the end of the year, set aside an hour to read the book and another half-hour to set some goals to help you become a great (or even greater) lawyer.  You'll build a much stronger practice for that effort.

Full text and active links are available at the source site listed below.

Source: Life at the Bar, 9 September 2009

Full post as published by Stark County Law Library Blawg on September 14, 2009 (boomark / email).