Listening For Lawyers:
Effective Communication for Effective Advocacy
Berks County Bar Association
October 23, 2013

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Listening Like A Lawyer
• The Lawyer Personality
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Considerations for Dissolving Barriers to Communication
• Listening Filters
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Contents of our own Minds
Socio-Cultural Filters
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Ego and Behavioral Blocks to Listening/Understanding
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Listening Practice
• Strategic Questioning:
Asking The Best Question

Justice
One definition of Justice is “Right
Relationship”
Fairness, equality, respect, inherent dignity of every person
Listening itself is an act of Justice

“The healing function ought to be the primary role of the lawyer in the highest conception of our profession….
Chief Justice Warren Burger
“Listening is the oldest, and perhaps most powerful tool of healing”
Rachel Naomi Remen

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Cognitive and Behavioral
Distancing From Those Who Are
Not Like Ourselves
…the dominant human response to people perceived as ‘other’
Both interpersonal and institutional
Lack of exposure, experience
Ignorance (not knowing, unaware)

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Moral Exclusion: see as ‘other’ and lesser.
Dehumanization
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Lack of empathy, sympathy, compassion
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Stereotyping
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Discrimination
• Exclusion
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Legal system

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Distancing is nonnormative among those in actual relationship with those in the target group
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The antidote:
Relationship
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Justice: “Right relationship”

Shifting the Listening Paradigm

Active Listening….
one of many listening modalities
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Encouraging
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Restating
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Reflecting
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Summarizing

What is ‘Listening Like a Lawyer’?
Reflect upon modes of communication in law.
In your experience, what stands out for you as the most significant aspect of Listening Like a
Lawyer? Name it in a word or phrase.

What Do We Learn In Law School?
“In academic culture most listening is critical listening. We tend to pay attention only long enough to develop a counterargument, we critique (other’s) ideas, we mentally grade and pigeonhole each other.
Seldom is there a deep, openhearted, unjudging reception of the other. And so we all talk louder and more stridently and with a terrible desperation.
MRO’Reilly, quoted in Mark Weisberg and Jean Koh Peters, Experiments in
Listening, Journal of Legal Education, volume 57, Number 3 (September
2007

Pure doubt Pure belief
Socratic method/Critical Listening Deep Listening
Good lawyers and judges know when to use these modalities appropriately.
Adapted from : Peter Elbow. Embracing Contraries: Explorations in Learning and Teaching (Oxford, 1986)

Adapted from Understanding and Leading Lawyers, by Dr. Larry Richard
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“Lawyers are not like other kids.”
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On most personality traits, lawyers score dramatically differently from other people
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On 6 of 18 traits, lawyers score two levels outside the standard deviation

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Lawyers…..
Are more skeptical: Greatest deviation from norm.
• Lawyers score 90% (general public:50%)
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Are more autonomous:
• Lawyers: 85% General Public: 50%
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Have a greater sense of urgency:
• Lawyers: 75% General Public: 50%
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Have a higher level of empathy
• (Also see Myers-Briggs data in materials)

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Have a lower level of Sociability: (degree to which connect at cerebral or emotional level)
Lawyers: 12% General Public: 50 %
Utilize abstract reasoning to a greater degree:
Lawyers: 82% General Public 50%
Are less Resilient:
Lawyers: 36% General Public 50%
Are most effective in One on One communication. Keep large group discussions to a minimum.

:
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Attorney-client relationship
Information Gathering
Choice of strategy
Outcomes
Client satisfaction
Attorney satisfaction
Access to Justice

….for Colleagues and Staff:
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Better relationships
• Increased understanding
• More efficient and effective communication
Less tension and stress
Possibility of greater creativity Listening in and of itself does some of the work for you.

1.
The Content of Our
Own Minds
2.
Socio-cultural filters
3.
Our Egos
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Content of our own Minds
• What IS the content of your thought?

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The Process:
1. Examine Your Internal Monologue:
What goes on in your head?
Thinking of the rest of your to-do list
Thinking of what to say in response
Thinking of a solution
Thinking of why the other person is wrong
Thinking about a similar thing that happened to you
Thinking about what you have to do next
Worrying about your problems
Worrying about 3,000 things that might happen

What To Do?
Be Aware
Conscious
Present
Intentional

CAVEAT!
Continuous Partial Attention
Multitasking:
The Research*
• Faster behaviors
• Those who multitask most are those least able to do so
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Poor at sorting out irrelevancy
Worse at switching between tasks
Worse memory retention
Research: is multitasking deteriorating these capacities in the brain?
*Based on the work of Clifford Nass, Stanford, Communication Between Human and Interactive Media Lab, and Gary Small UCLA, ibrain: Surviving the Technological
Alteration of the Modern Mind

*
Based on the work of:
•
•
•
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Nancy Boyd-Franklin, Nancy. Black Families in Therapy: Understanding the African American Experience.
Monica McGoldrick, Joe Giordano, and Nydia Garcia-Preto, editors. Ethnicity and Family Therapy, 3rd Edition.
Deborah Tannen, You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men In Conversation, and Talking Nine To Five: Women and Men at
Work
Susan Bryant, “The Five Habits: Building Cross Cultural Competence in Lawyers” 8 Clinical Law Review 37 2001-2002
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And others……….

Class
Age
Education
E
G
O
Ethnicity
Religion Gender
(Bias)

Differences in Custom and Culture:*
How can these affect communication with clients?
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Formation of trusting relationships
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Evaluation of credibility
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Information gathering
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Attribution of intended meaning from behavior and expression
*adapted from Bryant

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Culture and Custom
• Non-verbals
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Biases/Prejudices/
Assumptions
See Project Implicit: https://implicit.harvard.edu
/implicit
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Prior Experience, including Knowledge
• For lawyers, this includes legal knowledge/skills/ expertise. Clients bring their own experience and skill .

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Non verbals: What is your assumption about what these signify?
Eg.
• Nodding?
• Eye contact?
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Individualism vs. Collective culture:
• e.g. privacy and confidentiality.
• How could this be an issue in the clientrelationship context?

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Socio-Cultural Rules and Norms
Hidden Assumptions about:
 possessions
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 money time
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 education language world view personality motivations gender roles family
Enormous variation in norms and beliefs

Socio-Cultural Conversational Dynamics
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The Role of Story
• The Structure of
Conversation
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The Role of Language
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Formal and casual speech
Context: Custom and Belief

Language in Cultural Context
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Example #1.
Lawyer says to Client:
“If there is anything you do not understand, please just ask me to explain”
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Or, Example. #2
“If I am not being clear, please just ask me any questions:”
What could you say instead?

1.
Not Knowing
2.
Genuine Curiosity
3.
Awareness of Personal and Socio-
Cultural Filters
4.
Focus on EXPERIENCE, not convictions

• Know that you do not know.
Be CONSCIOUS of this.
• Engage in
‘generous interpretation’ of client behavior: adopt “parallel universe”* thinking
Bryant, Susan. “The Five Habits: Building Cross Cultural Competence in Lawyers” 8 Clinical Law Review 37 2001-
2002

• Respond with Strategic
Questions, not statements.
• If you can’t think of anything to say, don’t say anything!
Experiment with silence.

ONE MORE FILTER WE ALL
HAVE IN COMMON…
OUR
EGOS

 Desiring, seeking, or demanding recognition for something you did
Being angry, upset, disgruntled, or ‘holding on’ if you don’t get it
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Trying to get attention by talking about yourself, your experiences, your issues etc.
 Giving your opinion when nobody has asked for it and it makes no difference to the situation

 Being more concerned with how the other person sees you than with the other person
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Trying to make an impression on others through knowledge, status, physical strength, possessions, good looks, etc. For some, boasting of the OPPOSITE, e.g. a simple lifestyle, lack of possessions, lack of a privileged background, etc.
 Bringing about temporary ego inflation through angry reaction against someone or something

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Taking things personally, feeling offended
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Making yourself right and others wrong through futile mental or verbal complaining, gymnastics, explaining.
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Wanting to be seen, or appear important.
• Bragging, selfaggrandizing speech
• Exaggerating/inflating accomplishments
• Belittling others, actions that diminish, demean, or are meant to embarrass others

Which of these behaviors do I own?
How and when do I utilize them?
How have they served me in the past?
Is it time to let them go?

s
Generous
Interpretation
Parallel Universe
Thinking
“The more afraid we are, the more certain we become.”
Brene Brown

What can you affirm?
Again:
Generous Interpretation
Parallel Universe Thinking

“Justice is open to everyone in the same way as the Ritz Hotel.”
“
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”
Anatole France (Jacques
Anatole François Thibault), The
Red Lily, 1894

Reflect on these quotes:
What, if anything:
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Justice is open to everyone in the same way as the
Ritz Hotel.
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Inspires you
Surprises you
Challenges you, creates resistance in you
Makes you emotional, or evokes your compassion
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The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
Anatole
France (Jacques Anatole François
Thibault), The Red Lily, 1894

Group Listening Process
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Solitary Reflection in Silence
One person shares.
Silence
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Pay Attention! Notice your process.

Group Listening Process
Round 2
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Silence
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One person shares reflection.
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Silence
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Each listener may ask clarifying questions of the speaker
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Silence

Strategic Questioning: Asking the best question
What questions help clients clarify their own issues?

Potential of Strategic Questioning
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Greater Clarity see materials for details
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Greater Understanding
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Surfacing of Alternatives
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Improved Outcomes
• Compliance
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Empowerment

Strategic Questioning
Question Categories
Strategic Questioning : An Experiment in Communication of the Second Kind , by Fran Peavey
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1. FOCUS QUESTIONS
2. OBSERVATION QUESTIONS
3. FEELING QUESTIONS
4. VISION QUESTIONS
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Moving into Strategic Questions…….
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5. CHANGE QUESTIONS
6. CONSIDER THE ALTERNATIVES QUESTIONS
7. PERSONAL INVENTORY AND SUPPORT
QUESTIONS
8. PERSONAL ACTION STEP(S) QUESTIONS

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Group Listening Process
Round 3
Silence
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One person shares reflection.
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Silence
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Ask Strategic Questions
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Silence
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Group discusses the process.

AWARENESS
BEING PRESENT
INTENTIONALITY

Eight Behavioral Blocks to Effective
Communication adapted from the work of Lenn Snyder, MEd, LCSW
See materials for details

AWARENESS!!!!!
Default Position:
SELF Reflection , not judgment of another

BALANCE
Cultivating a reflective, examined life…
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates

Personal Conversational Dynamics
Homework:
When reviewing this session, reflect on your own conversational dynamics.
Which, if any, or these behaviors and interactions do you engage in?
Are you aware of this in the conversational moment? Have you ever reflected on these dynamics following a conversation?

Sharon Browning
, Esq
JUST Listening
26 W. Gowen Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19119-1645
Phone: 215-840-4772 sbrowning@justlistening.net
www.justlistening.net