Original subtitles

I once had a law professor that often would

make the joke that the entire reason why you go

to law school is just so you can learn a handful of

fancy Latin phrases to impress people at dinner

parties.

It's not the fanciest or most Latin of words I

know, but today I want to talk to you and try

really hard to impress you.

Talking about zeal.

Zeal is hands down one of my favorite words of

the most important words for me zeal great

energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an

objective.

It's not the only way to get at this point, it's

probably more common to talk about having

passion, enthusiasm.

There are other fun ways to talk about having

gusto.

But I'm talking very particularly about zeal.

And zeal is the very particular word that I'm

choosing today.

And it's so important to me because I'm a lawyer.

So going back to that dinner party example

whether you're making small talk with a stranger

at a bar, whether you're at a dinner party it's

pretty common to ask people, what do you do?

And talk about your profession.

And when people find out that I'm a lawyer it's

pretty common that people want to ask me

about their legal problems something they've

had before, something they think is around the

corner or better yet, their cousin's, aunt, sister,

halfway across the country is in this mess.

What can they do?

And odds are, for lawyers that face this type of

situation it might be that they ask you a very

specific question about the type of work you do

and maybe you can help them a little, maybe can

point them in the right direction.

But if you think about it, odds are whatever a

lawyer gets asked in this type of situation the

most likely correct answer is I don't know.

People hate to say I don't know, grunlians hate to

say I don't know.

But if you think about it, that's probably true.

Okay, so we have 50 states.

Every state has a bunch of different cities and

localities with their own laws.

The 50 different states with laws, a complex

federal system on top of it, of laws.

And these laws are changing all the time.

If you become a lawyer, you probably become

specialized.

You don't really go to law school to learn

everything in every situation and not just to

impress that person at the bar.

So what you do instead is you learn in law school

how to think like a lawyer.

That way you can kind of be a professional

chameleon whatever situation you end up in,

wherever you practice, whatever you decide to

do, however things evolve you can do what you

need to do to get up to date to be adapt, to be a

professional.

Now, whether you're a current student here

considering law school or whether law school is

never in your cards and you just might want to

brush up on your logic skills for some reason,

self improvement or I once had an exgirlfriend

tell me that it wasn't fair dating a lawyer because

I won every argument.

But for whatever reason, if you want to learn

what it means to think like a lawyer, you don't

have to go to law school.

There's plenty of books and websites and videos

out there on this topic.

And if you dive into it, probably the most

common things you're going to see are sort of on

this list.

So the first thing, especially if you're gearing

specifically for things for law students, you'll be

taught Iraq Issue Rule Analysis conclusion so in

law school, most exams are what we call issue

spotters, like a big long fact pattern where you're

supposed to read it.

And the idea is that you do this, you spot the

issue, you discuss what the rule is that applies to

the issue.

You show your work, your analysis, your

application, and you explain the conclusion, the

result that should come from it.

And all the while, while you're doing this, you're

also taught these other techniques you're taught

to avoid emotional reactions and distractions.

Don't let a red herring take you off topic, but

focus on the logic, the core of the issue.

You learn how to argue and see both sides.

Maybe you're assigned to side you don't

personally agree with, or maybe you need to see

the other side to anticipate and get out in front

of it or respond to it.

You learn how to infer rules from patterns.

You see what's happened time and time again to

anticipate what happened next, what will happen

next.

You compare situations using analogies.

If you come before a court, you might want to

say, hey, this is just like this thing that's

happened ten times before.

The same thing should happen today.

Or It's not like that thing and something new

should happen today.

And at the same time, you learn to accept

ambiguity and question everything.

And these are all fine, useful skills.

And I'm guessing these are all skills that you

learn as Grenadians and in all different fields of

work.

And you don't have to be a lawyer to use these

skills.

And I have no problem with this idea of what it

means to think like a lawyer.

But when I think about what it means to me to

think like a lawyer and how I hope my clients

view me, these aren't the first things that come

to mind.

I mean, think about it.

If you're asking a friend, hey, what did you think

about that lawyer that handled your divorce

proceeding last year?

They're never going to say, oh, they were so

great at Iraq.

I really love that.

No, instead I'm going back to my word about

zeal.

Because to me, what I hope to be is a zealous

advocate.

The idea of lawyers as a zealous advocate has

been around for a while.

One of the first ways it was written out was in the

American Bar Association's Canon of

Professional Ethics back in 1908.

So this is basically this organization wrote a draft

of ethics rules that they suggested that other

states and other courts kind of adapt and make

their own kind of a sample.

And under Canon 15, they wrote under Canon

15, which is how far a lawyer may go in

supporting a client's cause, they wrote that the

lawyer owes entire devotion to the interest of the

client.

Warm zeal.

Not just zeal.

Warm zeal in the maintenance and defense of

his rights, in the exertion of his utmost learning

and ability to the end that nothing be taken or

withheld from him.

Saved by the rules of law legally applied.

All right, so let's break this down for a second.

So the first part of it, the lawyer owes entire

devotion to the interest of the client.

Basically, that's meaning is a lawyer, the one you

hire, the one that's appointed to you, should be

on your side.

They're not playing the other side.

That makes sense.

Next part.

Warm zeal in the maintenance and defense of

his rights and the exertion of his utmost learning

and ability, basically meaning that you should

use all of your knowledge, all of your experience,

to fight as hard and do whatever you can for

your client.

Now, obviously, there are limits to this.

You can't go out and better call solve the

situation.

You have to stay within the ethics rules.

But even if something may be unpopular or

unconventional, whatever is best within the

context for your client, you should do to the

utmost of your abilities.

And in the end, to the end, that nothing be taken

or withheld from him saved by the rules of law.

Meaning that we hope that if both sides have

people playing on their side and playing as hard

as they can, fighting as hard as they can, that we

should have just results, that we have fair

results.

I want to talk a little bit about how I learned what

it means to be a zealous advocate in the context

of my first job after law school.

So after I graduated law school, my first job was

with this great organization in New York City

called the center for Family Representation.

And what CFR does is it's about half attorneys

and half social workers.

And we were court appointed to parents in child

abuse and child neglect cases in Manhattan and

Queens.

And so, basically, if social services in New York

was considering intervening in a family,

supervising the family, maybe removing the child

and placing the child in foster care, we were the

people appointed to help them make the

arguments that they should keep their child in

their home or that they've done enough to have

the child returned back to their home.

And as you can imagine, people don't end up in

this type of situation or in family court in general

for really sunnier, rosy reasons.

Unfortunately, the majority of my clients were

dealing with things like substance abuse and

drug addiction and alcohol, mental health,

poverty, domestic violence and too often a

combination of many of the above.

But I was doing the type of work I wanted to do

and I learned what it means to be a zealous

advocate regardless of the situation I faced.

I mean, to use a poker analogy, you play the

cards you're dealt.

And sometimes I was dealt great cards,

sometimes I was dealt not so great cards.

But regardless, my responsibilities and my duties

were the same to be a zealous advocate and do

everything that I could for them.

And while I was going through this process and

learning what it meant to be a zealous advocate

for them, I also witnessed that these parents,

more often than not, regardless of how good or

bad the situation was that brought them to work

with me, were often a zealous advocate for their

own children.

They had strong, passionate feelings about how

their children should be treated and it was really

encouraging to me.

But I also sometimes noticed that they didn't

always apply that same level, the same high level

of standards of respect and treatment to

themselves.

And it kind of dawned on me that it's often easier

to be a zealous advocate for those around you

than for yourself.

It's often easier, you know, to speak up for your

friends and family, intervene on their behalf,

than maybe face some hard truth about yourself.

And I'm not saying that solutions and issues like

domestic violence and substance abuse are easy.

You can't just flip a switch and fix them.

But understanding your self worth and

demanding more of yourself is one of those first

steps.

And I don't want to sound like a hypocrite up

here talking about it because at the same time I

began to realize that I was kind of guilty of this

myself.