We Need Good People More Than Smart Minds in the Legal Profession Today

This week in the Law School Insider I have the pleasure of bringing you Mr. John Berry, the Director of the Legal Division of the Florida Bar and he will be talking to us about characters and fitness and some of the stumbling blocks that he has seen lawyers struggle with in his many years working with lawyers.

As the Director of the Legal Division for the Florida Bar he works on lawyer regulation issues as well as dealing with issues that lawyers may face as it comes to professionalism and character and fitness too. Because most of his career has been with a State Bar, he has worked in the area of disciplining attorneys for many years. Over his career his name is attributed to more law licenses being taken away from lawyers than anyone else in the country. His hope though is to work with and help lawyers and especially young lawyers in staying out of trouble. As a part of this work he has and is working on legal reform to help to make sure that new and future lawyers are setting themselves on this positive road toward ethical law practice.

I asked Mr. Berry about some of the main stumbling blocks that law students and young lawyers face. Mr. Better expressed that instead of focusing on the rehabilitative side of dealing with this issue as has been done in the past, now many of the State Bar associations are addressing this from a preventative standpoint. Mr. Berry stated that may law schools are missing the substantitive skill based learning that you need to build these to find your ultimate success.

Some of the issues that law students and new lawyers face include:

1. A lack of an emotional IQ - knowing how to react as a human being and knowing how to correct mistakes that you might make with a client, or deal with anger management issues. 
2. How do you run a law office - You must be organized and be able to keep track of everything.
3. The interpersonal issues of drugs and alcohol - As many of 20-30% of lawyers have a drug or alcohol or other psychological problem that will impact their practice of law.

To set yourself on the right path towards success Mr. Berry stated that in the first year of law school you should work on:

1. Finding out who you are - search for something that is of higher importance for you the law and what the law tells you. Find out how you want to live your life and start to create a plan to follow.
2. Network - Make as many friends as you can.
3. Find an Accountability Partner - Someone that will really listen to you, your struggles and more. 
4. Take a personality test - Take the Myers-Briggs or Berkman will help you to understand yourself and the different people that you will interact with.
5. Examine and understand the things that can get you in trouble -  Things such as failure to communicate; inability to stay organized on the things you need to stay organized on; a bad attitude.
6. Learn about the life of the lawyer, and not just the law - you learn this by asking questions and listening to your professors and practicing attorneys.

In one of the Carnegie reports that had looked at law schools they found that law schools were doing a great job at giving students a good basis for the knowledge of the law. Some law schools were doing a good job at incorporating and training students about the skills needed to be a good lawyer. Few law schools were spending much time working on the formation of your character though. 

Mr. Berry mentioned an article that talked about what makes lawyers happy. To find happiness this study found that:

• You need to enjoy the process of what you are doing in your career.
• You have to have an intrinsic motivation for being in this career and not just be focusing on the extrinsic rewards of the profession.

Mr. Berry recounted what the Supreme Court justice told him and his classmates in his own commencement which was that "no matter what you think about your future career, you don't know what you are going to end up doing." Thus, while you may have a general idea, it will grow and shift as you move along.

We need good people more than smart minds in this profession right now says Mr. John Berry.  

Did you like this interview? Do you have a question for John Berry? Leave a comment below to let me know!

Are you a practicing lawyer? A law student? Would you like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of the Law School Insider? Send me an email at lawschoolinsider@cooley.edu