Develop Your EQ -- Or Else

Having a fully developed EQ is approaching the level of an essential skill for today's new lawyer.

Law schools are almost exclusively focused on the raw output they generate: grades, class rank, law review. In turn, students often only care about these things as well. People become merciless. Rather, most people who attend law school are already type A overachievers, and thrust into the gauntlet that is law school, their competitive drive is only accentuated. Carried over into practice, they become focused on results and develop ruthless, cutthroat behaviors. This results in many people thinking that lawyers are professional a-holes.

And sometimes, lawyers need to be a-holes. If you’re going to run and hit the boo-hoo button every time you’re faced with adversity, you need to find a different line of work. But lawyers certainly do not need to be a-holes all the time. Instead, lawyers would be much better served in taking the time learning how to regulate aggressive behavior and developing the ability to read other people’s emotions and develop methodologies and frameworks for interacting with them…

“Emotional Intelligence” (EQ) has been gaining steam in the business world for years now. So of course, law schools and lawyers are just now coming around to the idea in any sort of tangible way. But EQ has always been the bread and butter of successful lawyers. Successful lawyers are able to control their emotions and read the emotions of others. They are able to display adaptability in conflict situations and adjust their approach to other people on the fly.

Psychologist Daniel Goleman, who brought the term EQ to popular awareness with his book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, defines EQ under the “mixed model“:

  1. Self-awareness – the ability to know one’s emotions, strengths, weaknesses, drives, values, and goals, and recognize their impact on others while using gut feelings to guide decisions;
  2. Self-regulation – involves controlling or redirecting one’s disruptive emotions and impulses, and adapting to changing circumstances;
  3. Social skill – managing relationships to move people in the desired direction;
  4. Empathy – considering other people’s feelings especially when making decision; and
  5. Motivation – being driven to achieve for the sake of achievement.

These skills are essential when interacting with co-workers, clients, opposing counsel — anyone really. The ability to read people and respond to their emotional states in real time is an essential skill for an attorney. Yet they are largely neglected in law schools. The focus is on pure analytical analysis and logical reasoning. Which is valid to a point. Emotions have little to do with interpretations of a statute or breaking down case law. Beyond that, intelligence and strong analytical skills may encourage lawyers to think that they can function without any sort of developed EQ.

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While that may be true in a pure black letter law sense, it falls apart when interacting with people. We are not all rational actors despite what economists would like to believe. Rather, we are all fallible, flawed individuals who are stumbling our way through life. Sometimes people react with cold, calculating logic. Other times, they are swayed by the situation, or how they feel in the moment. Or maybe they just want to get lunch. Regardless, it is a lawyer’s responsibility to recognize these emotional states in other people and respond in kind. Yet law schools are doing little to develop EQ skills in their students.

A few days ago, I noticed on the Legal Skills Prof Blog a post highlighting a law review article discussing pursuing the development of EQ and mindfulness in law school. Entitled Think Like a (Mindful) Lawyer: Incorporating Mindfulness, Professional Identity, and Emotional Intelligence into the First Year Law Curriculum, the article advocates for introducing an EQ curriculum into law schools:

In this article, I add to the existing mindfulness literature by discussing other ways that law teachers might consider incorporating mindfulness and emotional intelligence into one or more of their classes. I also discuss the related idea of helping students develop a professional identity. Next, I focus on providing these tools in a first-year mandatory class and then attempt to provide a rationale, and a roadmap, for doing this.

I don’t know about making it a mandatory class — law schools are already doing away with former core classes in order to make way for something useless like “The Law and ________.” But the idea of introducing EQ concepts into the standard law school curriculum does strike me as a good idea. My previous posts are littered with anecdotes regarding displays of EQ. Having a fully developed EQ is approaching the level of an essential skill for today’s new lawyer. Especially those who are going to strike out on their own or join a smaller firm.

New (or solo) lawyers need to be able to immediately build a rapport with potential clients, their community, and other lawyers if they want to even begin to have a fighting chance of making it in today’s legal economy. As such, having a fully developed range of EQ becomes almost necessary in order to achieve success. So it only follows that law schools, and new lawyers, take the time to develop EQ skills and methodologies.

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The real question is whether or not law schools will take the time or initiative to develop classes that focus on EQ — and whether law students would even bother with such classes given the rigid focus on rank and academic achievement. Yet new lawyers who want to excel in the real world would be well advised to take the time to develop their EQ — whether it be through law school or not.


Keith Lee practices law at Hamer Law Group, LLC in Birmingham, Alabama. He writes about professional development, the law, the universe, and everything at Associate’s Mind. He is also the author of The Marble and The Sculptor: From Law School To Law Practice (affiliate link), published by the ABA. You can reach him at keith.lee@hamerlawgroup.com or on Twitter at @associatesmind.