Beyond Biglaw: We Can All Help (Part 2) -- Empathy Is Priceless

Empathy is a critical trait for a lawyer; what's the best way to develop it?

Blank Lawyer Type Sign or Shingle.In last week’s column, I discussed how important it can be for lawyers to act on their impulses to help others. That column focused on how critical it can be to appreciate the impact one has with the good deeds that they do, both as a way to inspire others, and for personal purposes. I focused last week on the benefits of giving charitable donations, particularly to worthy organizations, and how such donations allow for donors to make a broad impact on numerous people in need. This week I want to focus on the deeper impact one can make by giving directly of their time and energy, and at least one resultant benefit that may be unique to volunteering.

Just like last week, for purposes of this discussion, we are using the New York Family Court’s Self-Represented Litigants Volunteer Attorney program as our example of a worthy charitable cause. Last week, we looked at how such a program could be favorably impacted by an infusion of cash in the form of private-sector donations. This week, we will consider the impact a single additional volunteer lawyer can make to such a program, and discuss how direct participation in the program as a volunteer can convey benefits that simply are not available when one writes a check.

This is not to minimize the innumerable benefits to both giver and recipient of donating money. I only want to point out how volunteering can help change us for the better much more quickly than just writing yearly checks to favorite organizations will — particularly when it comes to helping us develop our capacity for empathy. For those who understand how important empathy can be to a legal career, much less to our spiritual growth, this benefit of volunteering should never be underestimated.

So let’s consider our lawyer friend, who is looking to make a deeper impact, and in lieu of a cash donation actually wants to volunteer precious time. Maybe they will staff one of the volunteer lawyer program’s physical offices for a morning, or dedicate a few hours to tele-consultations with remote self-represented litigants looking for advice. Their impact will be both direct and deep, particularly for those litigants who end up benefiting from their advice.

Of course, a lawyer willing to both volunteer cash and time is the best possible friend for any charitable project, but sometimes doing both is simply impossible for many lawyers. By actually staffing the volunteer attorney’s office, our volunteer will be making a direct impact in the lives of the litigants who take the time out from their busy (and often difficult) to come for advice. Furthermore, our lawyer will also benefit the program by strengthening the pool of volunteers, and by setting a good example for other lawyers to consider volunteering themselves.

But what about the the title of this column? Here is where I make my pitch for volunteering time, as opposed to just writing a check. One of the hardest things for anyone to do, particularly those at either end of the success/failure spectrum, is to develop their capacity to empathize with others. Even though empathy is one of the critical traits that a lawyer should possess, the stress and demands of the profession somehow work to make lawyers jaded instead.

We need to combat this phenomenon as directly as possible, so my advice to lawyers — particularly those who consider themselves successful, or who think they are downtrodden — is to go out and volunteer to help someone less fortunate using your legal skills. The successful lawyer will learn empathy and gratitude from the experience, while the struggling one will also learn empathy and recognize that there are people worse off that they can help using their legal skills. As lawyers, we must always be able to read our audience, whether that audience is a client, colleague, opponent, or tribunal. The ability to empathize with our audience is one of the hardest skills for a lawyer to develop. I personally have yet to find a better shortcut than volunteer work.

Sponsored

Of course, this time of year is an appropriate time to consider how we can maximize the impact of our good, or at least well-intentioned, deeds. Understanding that our choices can result in our making a broad or deep impact — even when we can’t meet the ideal of doing both — is a powerful motivator for us to never pass up the opportunity to help others. This understanding is also an important step to an even deeper realization — that the true beneficiary of our good deeds is ourselves, since everything we do that cares for or helps others is another incremental step towards elevating ourselves above the level of a base, selfish animal. Whether it is choosing to actually respond to an emailed request for a donation, or forgoing billable work to handle a tele-consultation with a family court litigant in a county many miles away, we all have the power to help ourselves by helping others. Finally, while going on a Paypal-fueled donation binge is definitely worthwhile, lessons in empathy are more valuable and come at a steeper cost — one that is well worth it, though, since even though cash is king, empathy is priceless.

Please feel free to send comments or questions to me at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or via Twitter: @gkroub. Any topic suggestions or thoughts are most welcome.

Earlier: Beyond Biglaw: We Can All Help (Part 1) — Measuring Impact


Gaston Kroub lives in Brooklyn and is a founding partner of Kroub, Silbersher & Kolmykov PLLC, an intellectual property litigation boutique. The firm’s practice focuses on intellectual property litigation and related counseling, with a strong focus on patent matters. You can reach him at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or follow him on Twitter: @gkroub.

Sponsored