Building Credibility and Favor With the Judge, as Told by a Judge

Episode Notes

Transcript

Jim Reeder:

Hello everyone and welcome to Litigation Radio. I’m your host, Jim Reeder. I’m a lawyer practicing antitrust and commercial litigation in the Houston office of Jones Day. In addition to trying lawsuits, I’ve spent my entire career focused on helping young lawyers become great lawyers. On this show, we talked to the country’s top litigators, judges, in-house counsel and academics to discover best practices for developing careers, winning cases, getting more clients, and building a sustainable practice, all while staying well and happy. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcasting app to make sure you never miss an episode. Litigation Radio is brought to you by the litigation section of the American Bar Association. It’s where I make my home it the A, BA and I’m a huge proponent of the section of litigation. This podcast is just one example of the dozens of resources. The section of litigation provides litigators of all practice areas to help become successful trial lawyers for our clients, learn more and become a member at A-M-V-A-R that that’s ambar.org/litigation.

Today our topic is a critical one for every litigator building credibility with the judge and there’s no one better suited to talk about this subject than my guest, judge Mark Drummond. Mark Drummond was a trial lawyer for 20 years, followed by 20 years as a trial court judge. After retiring from the bench, mark returned to the Courtroom as an advocate and provides legal guidance on a pro bono basis through the A BA platform. Free legal answers. Judge Drummond is the program director for the joint, Nita a, a advocacy program for legal services attorneys. And in 2019, legendary trial lawyer Steve Sussman asked Mark to become the judicial director for the civil jury project at the NYU School of Law. Judge Drummond is the project’s Executive judicial director. In addition to working in his private law practice, mark is also on the pro bono advisory panel for the access to council project for the Federal Bar Council. Welcome, mark.

Judge Mark Drummond:

Thanks, Jim.

Jim Reeder:

Well, so we’re glad you’re here. First off, I think one of the things that helps contribute to our collective learning and civil discourse and understanding is just getting to know each other. I happen to think it provides incredible insight into why each of us thinks the way we do. And obviously many of us think very differently. Often it’s just so much better if we can just understand something about each other. As such, I like to start off by having our guests do two things. First, share a thumbnail of your career path that’ll help everybody. And two, share something about yourself, your background, your childhood, some experience you had that has shaped who you are.

Judge Mark Drummond:

Well sure. The thumbnail of my career path is I went to law school at the University of Illinois and I’d actually put my job application in with US attorney’s office in Chicago because at that time it was one of the best ways to get trial experience in complex cases. Unfortunately, the year was 1980 and there was a hiring freeze put on in the federal office in Chicago. So that was kind of a dead end for me. So I started off in a state’s attorney’s office in Coles County, Illinois, and an attorney from Quincy called my trial advocacy professor and said, Hey, there’re a student who came through who just wants to try cases. And he gave him my name and I went over and started a law practice over there. I practiced law for 20 years and then there was an associate judgeship that came up.

Quite frankly, I was doing a lot of advocacy training both in the US and around the world, and I had three children and was traveling a lot. I put my name in, not thinking that I would get it, but I did get it and then a circuit judgeship came up and I ran for that. And then I became presiding judge of the county that I was in. So after 20 years on the bench, I decided to step down. I missed the Courtroom, I wanted to go back in as an advocate. But one evening I’m sitting at home and I get a call from Steve Sussman who was very active in the section of litigation. That’s how I met him. He was one of the prime movers in trying to make jury trials better for everyone and ultimately the clients. And he called me up one evening and said, Hey, would you like to become the judicial director at the NYU School of Law for the civil jury project?

And I turned to my wife and I said, do you want to move to New York City? And she said, sure. And that’s where I’ve been for the last five years. Now, as far as my childhood, I was firmly convinced before eighth grade that I wanted to be a scientist. So I asked for a chemistry SAT one year, I got a microscope one year I would shoot off the Estes Rockets until an eighth grade social studies class. I’ll never forget it, it was Mr. Springer decided to go off book and do a mock trial and I was one of the attorneys and that set me on my career path. So my career path was determined in eighth grade by a great social studies teacher.

Jim Reeder:

Well, your thumbnail of your career I think speaks volumes for all of us, which is a lot of it’s not planned. A lot of it is just good fortune and being in the right place and somebody calling up and saying, do you have somebody who wants to try lawsuits and working it out with your spouse or whoever else? We’re all the product of that. And I think it’s good to realize that if you’re listing and you have not planned it all out, it’s okay.

Judge Mark Drummond:

Yes, correct.

Jim Reeder:

Steve Sussman a marvelous guy. I practiced law in Houston, which is where I practiced. I clerked at Sussman Godfrey. He really did remarkable things with regard to civil jury reform and you’re continuing that Mark, I just want to say thank you and appreciate all you’re doing.

Judge Mark Drummond:

Yes, he was a pioneer. The assessment agreements, which we published through litigation at the A, BA and I wrote an article about it, really talk about streamlining and taking a lot of the friction out that occurs in litigation, making it better for the attorneys and ultimately better for the clients and the court system.

Jim Reeder:

And judges have embraced it, most judges have embraced it, which is marvelous. Alright, so let’s move to our topic today, which is great building credibility with the judge. You’ve talked about it, you’ve written about it. In fact, you mentioned you have a new article coming out on the subject in litigation and it may seem obvious, but why as trial lawyers is building credibility with the judge important?

Judge Mark Drummond:

Well, it’s absolutely critical and you have to build it brick by brick. I can remember when I first went to the town where I practiced for 20 years, there was an older attorney and they would always tell this story about him citing a case to the judge and with air quotes, forgetting to put the word not into a case site. And no matter what he did after that, no matter what good he did after that, everybody talked about him forgetting to put the word not into the case site even at his funeral. And this guy did a lot of good things over his life, but that was the story that people always talked about. So it takes a lifetime to build credibility, but it only takes one instance to lose all of your credibility

Jim Reeder:

And that can have consequences. And you may think, oh, well that’s just a consequence that may be felt in the immediate case before that judge, but as you say, that was something that went well beyond the relationship of that case with that judge. It can have career consequences obviously.

Judge Mark Drummond:

Exactly.

Jim Reeder:

Judges talk. We know that it gets around and before you know it, obviously that’s what you’re known for. Alright, so let’s get to the dryer part of it. There obviously are rules related to an advocate’s dealings with the court. What are the rules that bear on this subject in particular that is your credibility with the court?

Judge Mark Drummond:

Well the one I always go back to is 3.3 and that is candor to the tribunal. And I have written about what I call emergency advocacy. That is when you are alone in front of the judge and you’re seeking extraordinary relief whether it’s a temporary restraining order and injunction and order of protection and the judge is asking you questions. Now there is the truth, which of course we must do, but there’s also candor. And candor is the truth. Plus the truth is giving the judge truthfully the good parts of our case. But every case is like a rose and the rose has thorns and candor means you have to be candid with the judge about the thorns of your case because if you are not and the judge finds out about that, it ruins your credibility. I mean you’re less likely the next time you’re asking for extraordinary relief to get the judge to go with you because the judge knows they can’t trust you on candor both the good and the bad.

Jim Reeder:

I love the construct of putting it in terms of you in an emergency relief situation, just you don’t have somebody on the other side. What would you do in that situation? It’s like what do you do when nobody is looking at you? Right? That reveals so much of your character.

Judge Mark Drummond:

I think there’s a famous quote, I think it was John Wooden and I’m probably going to get this wrong, but the quote was, character is what you do when you think no one is looking

Jim Reeder:

Right and candor is when nobody’s there to force you to tell your wards you do it anyway.

Judge Mark Drummond:

In addition, if we go to jury trials and the attorney stands up and objects and if the attorney has built up credibility with me, I know that they’re not just doing a sport objection for the sake of doing a sport objection, that there is a real ground for them standing up and objecting to it. So it works all the way through their career. In addition, when a young advocate comes in, they immediately build credibility for example, on a motion hearing when they say, judge, this is our position in this case, but we have to admit there are two cases which are arguably against us and here they are. We believe they’re distinguishable upon these facts and here are the three cases in our favor and we’ll address those now, oh my gosh, you want to find for that attorney mean you’ll apply the law. But my gosh, coming right out with the things that are against you not only satisfies the rule of candor to the court, but it’s also persuasive. It shows the judge that you are not frightened or scared of these cases. You will take them head on. And then let’s move on to why you ought to find for my client.

Jim Reeder:

Well, and I’ve discovered this and we’ve been at this a long time and technology is having a huge impact. We could talk about AI all day, but I do know because I’ve talked to judges today that there are tools available to judges now that you would’ve loved to have had, which enable them to not only look to see whether you have cited the case correctly in the brief that is that your summary is actually consistent with what the case says, but also will reveal cases that you should have cited or cases that the other side should have cited even if they didn’t do that. And so if you show up and all of a sudden you’re talking about those cases, it will be impressive.

Judge Mark Drummond:

Yeah, I mean you and I both know that back in the day we had to go to shepherd citations and it took hours to do this. Now you can just cut and paste into an AI program and it spits it out. Now you’ve got to fax, check that to make sure there are no hallucinations, but it can do what? It took us hours back when I started just seconds or minutes

Jim Reeder:

And it is, it’s just a foundation, just a place to start. But it’s very interesting to me that it’s not just developing AI tools for the lawyer and the advocate, but judges as well, which I think is marvelous. In some ways it’s become even a greater test for lawyers and their candor frankly, because we have seen certainly some very prominent examples where people have had to fall on their sword with regard to the use of ai. Alright, so before we get to the tips, and I know everybody loves the tips. I always wonder this, and I’m sure it’s different with each judge, but is it your experience that you go in to a judge that you’ve never been before and that judge is going to assume at the outset that you are credible, that you are going to be truthful with them, that you’re going to exercise candor and you then have to do something to prove them wrong? Or do you think that they start out more jaundiced? Either they think of the advocate as neutral and therefore they’re going to decide which side of the neutrality they fall on? Or in fact they even start with the thought that, you know what? I think lawyers tend to over exaggerate things and not be particularly candid and you have to actually build that credibility.

Judge Mark Drummond:

Well, I’d like to think that every attorney who came in front of me was on an even playing field. And I think the old adage that you only have one chance to make a good first impression is always true. The story I always like to tell is it was a motion hearing. There was a new attorney barely at theBar for less than a year going against an older attorney, kind of a lion of theBar and it was the lion of the bar’s motion. And he argued and sat down and she was only maybe a minute and a half into her response when all of a sudden he stood up and interrupted her, with Your Honor, that’s not the way, blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now at that point, four things could have happened. She could have turned to him and said, don’t interrupt me.

The second thing is she could have more properly said, your Honor, would you ask him not to interrupt me? The third thing was I could have injected myself in and said, don’t interrupt, but I never do that. Why? Because I like to see these human dramas play out. I love that, I love that. And the fourth thing that happened, which nobody expected was she just sat down during the interruption. Now his client got kind of a self-satisfied smirk on his face and her client looked at her like, why are you sitting down? And the older attorney exhausted his interruption and then she very quietly stood up and with a great deal of poise, said, your honor, I gave Mr. Green the courtesy of not interrupting his argument and I was wondering if he would extend me the same. And the room shifted 180 degrees. I looked at that young attorney she had aged 20 years and that was persuasion. I mean she immediately built credibility just simply by the way she handled that.

Jim Reeder:

I love that. And that was instinctive by the way in her probably, which is good. And if that’s not your instinct, then you should take some lessons from that. I think that we forget that judges are human and they have human reactions to things and obviously they will react differently to different things. And so you’ve got to be aware of that. But when you display your humanity and when you display your willingness to treat things with dignity and others with dignity, I think everybody responds favorably to that.

Judge Mark Drummond:

Well, everybody does respond favorably to that and it doesn’t have to be in front of a judge. I wrote an article called Dealing with Jerks for Litigation News about depositions where you have these attorneys that the closest they’ll ever get to trial is being a jerk in a deposition. And one of the tells that I always had as to whether the other attorney had actually tried a case or not was whether they were a jerk in a video deposition because attorneys who’ve never tried a case before don’t realize that the video could be shown to a judge or a jury. So in this article I wrote about this attorney who very professionally handled a jerk on the other side of the deposition. And then about a year, a year and a half later, he got a call from that attorney’s client and they said, we’d like to hire you to represent our firm. And the attorney said, well, I’m thrilled, but I don’t know what you’re contacting me because I opposed you in this case. And they said, yes, but we liked how you handled yourself in the deposition and we want an attorney like you representing us.

Jim Reeder:

Exactly. And I dunno how many times you tell the story of the young lawyer, I don’t know how many times I’ve heard of judges picking up the phone again, they can do this and they call the senior partner at your law firm and they say, by the way, this young lady was before me today. She did a marvelous job. You should be very proud of her and I’d like to see her in my court again. That kind of thing happens.

Judge Mark Drummond:

Yeah, attorneys love to talk about judges and judges talk about attorneys.

Jim Reeder:

Yeah. Alright, so let’s get to the meat of it. So share some tips. I’ll kind of interrupt you along the way, but let’s share some tips you have developed for building credibility with a judge. Mean, obviously we’ve talked about a number of examples and anecdotes and that type of thing, but I know that you’ve also sort of got some little nuggets of tips that we can rely upon as well.

Judge Mark Drummond:

The first is know thy judge. So it is entirely ethical for you to Google the judge and see if they have anything that they put online. One of the things that I’ve always cited was there is a Judge Seger in the northern district of Illinois who has his protocol for depositions and it is one of the best things I have ever read for a young attorney to read. I think it’s like three or four pages as to what he expects during depositions. So research the judge, it is also entirely ethical for you to contact the other attorney and say, Hey, let’s get on a call. I want to find out if this judge has any special rules for her court. I thought of myself as a low maintenance judge. I didn’t want to be a high maintenance judge, but my one requirement for trials was that there be four exhibits.

Jim Reeder:

Exactly. Don’t show up with one exhibit and what am I going to do? How do I share with the witness, the judge, the other

Judge Mark Drummond:

Side? But other than that, that was my main requirement.

Jim Reeder:

Well, so in Harris County in Houston, the judges do put on the internet their local rules, alright? And I can tell you from experience that most lawyers don’t look at them one, which is just nutty to me that you wouldn’t do that. And two, if they do look at ’em, they’re whining about it, right? They’re like, oh my God, look what she makes us do. She makes us do that. She makes us do that. Instead of saying, oh my God, she has just given me the playbook for how I am going to meet her demands, needs and be impressive to her.

Judge Mark Drummond:

And if you’re in a deposition and they have rules on depositions like Judge Seger, you say on the record counsel, that is a violation of Judge Seeger’s rules that it should not be speaking objections, coaching the witness. Second, do the judge’s work for her or him? Towards the end of my career in bench trial cases, I would say, your Honor, this is our position. We would like the court to do A, B and C and I prepared an order that does that. It has findings of fact, it has the law which supports it. I have supplied it to the other attorney. They can send you any order they would like and of course your Honor can change this, so I want to make it as easy for the judge as possible to find for me, especially after the pandemic where you have cases which are stacked up. So anything you can do to make the judge’s job easier the better.

Jim Reeder:

Yeah, it’s interesting to me. Yes, you may have competing proposed orders from the other side, but I really do think the judge is trying to get it right and so they’ll know if you’re trying to pull the wool over them by inserting something in the order that’s not proper or shouldn’t be their jury instructions the same thing, right? Every time I’ve ever argued jury instructions with the court, it’s impressed upon me how much the judge just wants to get it right and really is sort of begging the parties, please, I want to get this right, so please help me get it right.

Judge Mark Drummond:

Exactly. One of a judge’s worst fear is for us getting overturned by the appellate court, we didn’t get the jury instructions right that now we have to call another 70 to a hundred people into the courthouse to retry this case. You’ll build credibility with judges if you get the instructions to the judge and you have alternate instructions that you can submit. I tell the attorneys that I value your time over my time because I know you have pressures on you that I don’t have. You have clients that you have to work for, you have time deadlines on other cases, so I will put your time over mine. However, there is one group that I put over you and that is the jury. And nothing upsets a judge more than the jury wasting their time because we can’t get a good set of jury instructions to them.

Jim Reeder:

And that leads to not only wasting the jury’s time, but one way that you build credibility. I know one of your tips is don’t waste the judge’s time. I find this very interesting and we’re not talking about procedure here and trial skills, we’re talking about building credibility, but you actually advocate for some things when appropriate I assume with regard to string sites and footnotes and actually quoting the standard for summary judgment that I find very interesting.

Judge Mark Drummond:

Yeah. Oh my gosh, I don’t know how many motions for summary judgment that I read that. Of course you read the caption then the title is Motion for summary judgment and the very first line says this is a motion for summary judgment, where the issue is whether there’s any genuine material fact, and I know it’s a motion for summary judgment. I know who you’re representing. I know the standard. I think I learned that in the first year of law school. So that is wasted effort on your part

Jim Reeder:

And you got to go three pages before you get to the meat of it.

Judge Mark Drummond:

Exactly. And I go back to the section of litigation. In my first editorial board meeting, we had an attorney, his name was Mike Yassky, and he was talking to us about writing leads to stories and another associate editor leaned over to me and said, you better listen to this guy. And I whispered back, well, I am listening, but why make a point of it? And he said, because he won the Pulitzer Prize. And Mike Lansky was a reporter for the Kansas City Star who wrote a series of articles with a team about the skywalk collapse at a hotel in Kansas City and they ended up winning the Pulitzer. He liked talking with the attorneys so much that he became an attorney himself. And he told us in that first editorial board meeting that I attended, that he spent maybe a quarter to a third of his time just writing the first sentence in the first paragraph in the story because he said, unless I can capture the reader’s attention with the first sentence or first paragraph, they won’t read the rest of the story. So capture the judge’s attention. It’s the Pareto principle. 20% of your words give you 80% of the effect, so don’t bury it in the middle. Also, any sites can go at the end if I need to check up on the case law, I don’t need them as a string side in the middle.

Jim Reeder:

I know there are people out there who practice law who are going to be a little skeptical about both of those things and where you put footnotes, non-controversial standards, et cetera, they’re going to think, oh shoot, I’ve just got one chance to do this and do I go ahead and risk it or do I do it the way I’ve always done it and just that’s the way it’s going to be. Do you think it’s really a very low risk proposition that you’re going to find a judge who actually then calls you out for not having put the standard at the front or for having put sites at the end or putting footnotes at the end

Judge Mark Drummond:

At the trial court level where 90% of the cases are decided by motion? I would advocate what I just talked about. Now I know there are certain protocols for Supreme Court briefs that you must follow, so I would not do that when there are definite protocols for things like that. But for all the other cases, the 90% of the iceberg that is below the water, I would advocate leading with your strength. Judges have so little time these days and you want to give them the most information in the quickest form possible. I always say that judges have two goals and you mentioned one. One is to make the correct decision. The second is a secondary goal, but also in the shortest period of time because cases unlike wine do not get better with age. We had a judge who took a case under advisement for over a year. It was a divorce case and the case went from a case worth over a million dollars to something that was a poultry sum because the major asset, which was a stock account, dropped precipitously during the time period it was under advisement.

Jim Reeder:

And of course it costs the clients and lawyers don’t always complain about it, but clients certainly do and it’s just inconsistent obviously with what we’re trying to do. I think this also probably plays into the know your judge, research your judge if you find some other opinions of theirs, if they’ve published opinions, if you can talk to other lawyers who’ve been before them, you can get comfort that you know what, they are an original thinker or they are somebody who likes innovation and therefore you can definitely do the kinds of things you’re talking about string sites, footnotes, non-controversial standards. The other thing I think you mentioned as one of your tips is to actually be creative, be different, distinguish yourself by using things and tools that are helpful to the judge in getting through oftentimes the monotony of one brief after another.

Judge Mark Drummond:

Yeah, it’s rare for an appellate court to compliment the trial judge, and it only happened twice in my career, but in one opinion I set forth a graph that was cited in the appellate court decision verbatim. It was just a list of all the infractions that were building up on the one side of the case, which justified me imposing the sanctions and the appellate court just took the whole thing and just put it into the opinion. The other was a side by side graph of the case that I was deciding versus the appellate court decisions. And it was just a very easy visual to grasp what I was trying to accomplish in the opinion.

Jim Reeder:

It’s a great way actually to set up a distinction between things, two different things. Our position, their position, our position, previous opinions, this circuit’s position versus another circuit’s position. Having something side by side is a marvelous tool to be able to do that

Judge Mark Drummond:

Well. And you talked about ai, we have to talk about how our brains are changing. I’ve got my cell phone in front of me speaking into it, and we used to talk on cell phones. We don’t talk on cell phones anymore. We look at cell phones. So most people prefer to get their information through their eyes. In addition, I wrote an article one time that I know how I could lose the weight I need to lose, and that is to do research the old fashioned way in a library jumping up and grabbing book after book. But now our attention span is fragmented. We’re going from one case site to another case site without reading the case fully. It is harder for me today to concentrate on one thing reading it because I am distracted. So it’s our duty as advocates to recognize this change and adapt to it.

Jim Reeder:

Yes, and it is very interesting to me that for a long time it’s probably been this way for generations that law firms have been reticent to embrace innovation, technological change, doing things different. And they often would say, oh, it’s because our audience is the judge and the judge is not going to like that. They are not being creative, they’re not innovative, they’re not moving with the technology. And it was always a justification for why many terrible things were done. I’m not going to put a woman lawyer before this judge, or I’m not going to do this before this judge. I think that’s all out the window. I think that we got to remember that we’ve got a whole new generation of judges and are keeping up with technology even more than probably the lawyers are.

Judge Mark Drummond:

I agree.

Jim Reeder:

Alright, so we talked about primacy, spending time on the lead, love that. Get it out early. The judge is going to like that. That’s going to be persuasive. We’ve talked about actually candor showing your watch. Be frank, if you will. One of the things you talk about is take the long view. What does taking the long view mean?

Judge Mark Drummond:

It relates to my experience and that is when you volunteer to do something a little bit extra, it always, it may not happen the day after, it may not happen the year after, but every good break I’ve had resulted from me volunteering to do something maybe a pro bono case or to speak at a CLE conference. And that turned into something that was interesting to do, traveling the world and teaching advocacy. And it also can result in something that’s lucrative where you will be getting paid for it. So I always go back to this story of we had a indigency committee in the city where I worked and one day I was at the desk and nobody was showing up. So I put the three ring binder back with the receptionist there and went into the clerk’s office to check on something. I came back out and I said, did anybody show up?

And she said, yeah, two women showed up. But I told them if they can’t be here on time, they don’t deserve a free lawyer. And I said, well, where are they? She said, they just walked out the doors. So I chased them down and brought ’em in and of course it was something that was easily taken care of. I mean it didn’t require much time on my part. And months later I got a call from one of them with a case and the case turned out to be a fee generating case. And if I hadn’t have done that, I never would’ve gotten that case. So you never know. You never know what is going to have an effect on down the road. And I have had the good fortune of when I volunteered to do something, it turned into something better on down the road

Jim Reeder:

And that’s consistent also. We could all understand this and know this, but judges, it takes a certain kind of person to be a judge and you find that judges won. They’re doing it for a variety of reasons. Usually it’s a sacrifice financially they’re doing it because they believe in, for instance, the rule of law. They believe in the civil justice system that we have set up and they obviously believe public service, so it should not be a surprise to anyone that they’re interested in particular about things like that. They’re interested in pro bono, they’re interested in your service to clients who otherwise can’t afford a lawyer. And so doing the little thing that gets you noticed by your local judiciary as somebody who supports the things they support, that’s taking the long view and that’s going to build your credibility.

Judge Mark Drummond:

Exactly. For example, if you walk into court, if I were still a judge and I see you standing next to a person in a small claims collection case representing that person, I know that you don’t normally handle cases like that. Everybody in the courthouse knows you don’t normally handle cases like that. I know it. The bailiff knows it, the court reporter knows it, and it improves your credibility. You’re just not in the practice of law for the money that you’re in the practice of law to do justice and you volunteering. When judges are looking for an attorney to represent somebody of limited means or somebody of limited capacity who needs help in court, it just improves your credibility tenfold.

Jim Reeder:

You automatically aligned yourself with the values and the interests of the judge without even having to do anything else. I love that. Okay. We can talk about this a lot. I will commend everybody to the article that’s going to come out called it Building Credibility with a judge. It’s coming out in litigation I think in the next couple of months, right?

Judge Mark Drummond:

Correct.

Jim Reeder:

And a lot of this is in there, so you can go back to it. This is really helpful stuff. Unfortunately, mark, that’s all the time we have. So I want to thank our guest, judge Mark Drummond, lots of topics that we could talk about and I know we’re going to get you back, so we’ll have to get you back soon. Thanks, mark. It’s been a pleasure. Our thanks to litigation section, premier sponsor, Berkeley Research Group for sponsoring this podcast. BRG is an award-winning global consulting firm composed of world-class experts in accounting, damages analysis, economics, finance, intellectual property valuation, data analytics and statistics. And they work across industries, disciplines, and jurisdictions delivering clear perspectives that you can count on. Their guiding principle is intelligence that works. Learn [email protected]. And now it’s time for our quick tip from the ABA Litigation Section. I’m pleased to welcome back Lauren Williams, Lauren practices corporate law at Morgan Stanley in Columbia, South Carolina. Welcome Lauren. What’s your quick tip?

Lauren Williams:

Thank you, Jim. Today we’re going to call out a lie that’s been taking up way too much space in a lot of attorney’s heads and that lie is imposter syndrome, but here’s the plot twist I want you to sit with today. What if you actually don’t have imposter syndrome? What if you’re just the first to do it? So let’s unpack that. Maybe you’re onboarding at your firm and everyone’s parents are lawyers, professors or judges or board members. Well, maybe you’re the first one in the room without a generational blueprint. You’re out here making history and honestly no one warned you how lonely it would feel. That’s not imposter syndrome. That’s what happens when you are breaking ceilings. Maybe you feel awkward asking for a raise. Well, that could be because you’ve never seen anyone who actually looked like you negotiate. Just only settle for what’s offered.

Maybe you second guess yourself stepping into court. That could be because you’re the youngest person on the docket or maybe you’re the first from your neighborhood or your family or even your school to ever stand at that podium. That’s not imposter syndrome, that’s trailblazing fatigue and it’s real. So imposter syndrome says, I don’t belong here. Trailblazer energy says I’ve never been here, but that doesn’t mean I don’t belong. And you can note the difference That imposter syndrome tends to be rooted in shame. While trailblazer energy tends to be rooted in newness and in the legal profession, if we can be quite honest, it hasn’t always made room for newness. We’re still navigating post pandemic uncertainty, political tension, economic shifts and burnout is everywhere, and it’s sadly become the norm in our profession. And yet you’re still here. You’re still showing up, building those hours, building your brand, starting again after those really hard days, learning and unlearning.

So if you’re the first person in your family to go to law school, you’re the only black or brown woman on your litigation team. You’re the youngest in the room balancing a law career and entrepreneurship starting your own firm or just saying no when others told you to just be grateful. You’re not an I imposter, you’re a pioneer. And pioneering is always uncomfortable because there’s no roadmap. You are literally the roadmap. So when those thoughts creep in, I just want you to ask yourself, is this fear because I’m faking it or because I’m forging something new? And more than likely, you’re not faking it, you’re just first. And I want to give you this permission slip to stop calling yourself an imposter because you’re not. You’re a blueprint, you’re a possibility. You can even call yourself a prototype. You weren’t meant to fit in. You were sent to shift the room.

And just because you’re the first doesn’t mean you’re not qualified. It means you were built for vision and you have that vision that sees beyond what’s already been done and let’s be real vision. It does take time, but it’s also the foundation for everything that comes next. So please hear clearly stop shrinking to fit systems that weren’t designed with you in mind and start expanding into those spaces you were born to transform. The next time that your voice and your head whispers that you don’t belong here or you’re not good enough, I want you to answer and remember this with full confidence. I’m not faking. I am forging. I’m not an imposter, I’m an innovator. And you walk into that deposition, that client meeting, that Courtroom, or wherever it is like you were born for it. I’m Lauren Barnes Williams and that’s been your young lawyer tip on a Litigation Radio. Until next time, and don’t forget, never confuse discomfort with disqualification. You got this.

Jim Reeder:

A reminder to be sure and subscribe to Litigation Radio on your favorite podcasting app so you don’t miss our next episode. If you like the show, please help spread the word by sharing a link to this episode with a friend or through a post on social media and invite others to join the show and community. If you want to leave a review over at Apple Podcasts, it’s incredibly helpful or even a quick rating over at Spotify podcasts. Those are both super helpful as well. Finally, I want to quickly thank some folks who make this show possible. Thanks to Michelle Oberts, who is the producer on staff with the litigation section. Thanks. Also, go out to the co-chairs of the Litigation Section’s audio content committee, Haley Maple and Mike Staiger. Thank you to the audio professionals from Legal Talk Network. And last but not least, thanks to you for listening. I’m Jim. Talk to you later.

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