Question Your Motives

When making a tactical choice or almost any significant choice on behalf of a client’s matter, ask yourself why.

We are supposed to win in our cases, and pretty much everything we do should lead us towards that goal. Be careful and challenge yourself as to why you are doing what you are doing.

Our firm is growing, which is good (though I won’t say of course; growth is not always good) and we were recently looking for more space. At the time of our search, I had lunch with one of the absolute top trial lawyers in the country who established his now prestigious firm a generation ago. He always gives me great advice about running a firm, or being a trial lawyer. When I said that we were looking to grow a bit, he pretty much ordered me, “Do not get too many people and do not get too much space.”

It’s great advice, and while he did not say it, I know what he was thinking: lawyers get space sometimes to satisfy our egos; lawyers sometimes hire more lawyers and staff to benefit their egos. We care about what the adversary thinks, or where we were quoted, or whether someone thought we were clever, or not, and it’s due to our egos.

Now, perhaps this is the most obvious thing in the world — (over)educated Western professionals have an ego problem. What I’m concerned about, though, is that the kind of Western professionals we are — trial lawyers — have to worry, every day, that that focus on ego could really get in the way of us doing our jobs. Our job is to advise our clients how to win, and do all we can to win for them. But if we’re concerned with some of the things I mentioned above, we by definition are not focused on winning.

Now, if you like to hear yourself talk in front of a bunch of people and argue to them why they should do what you’re asking them to do, then you very likely have a healthy ego. Indeed, you might need to have that healthy ego in order to do trial law well. I’m not saying there is a particular concern with confidence, or with enjoying the limelight (though always beware of being arrogant). What I am saying is that we have a special occupational hazard which we must worry about.

There is a straightforward, but difficult, means of addressing this: always question your motives. Put another way, always worry about your ego.

This may sound exhausting, to “always” do something when making a decision in your daily work. But actually, if done right, it becomes a habit and doesn’t feel onerous. To be sure, I’m not saying to sit like Rodin’s thinker, deeply pondering why exactly you are doing what you are doing.

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No — instead, when making a tactical choice or almost any significant choice on behalf of a client’s matter, ask yourself why: are you doing this to win? Or something else? And if it’s something else, it might well be ego.

Not just when deciding whether to get the space on the 13th floor or the 30th (get the 13th; it’s cheaper) or whether you really need to hire that extra lawyer (probably not if you’re questioning it; hire when it hurts), but every day: remember your ego and focus on winning for your client.


john-balestriereJohn Balestriere is an entrepreneurial trial lawyer who founded his firm after working as a prosecutor and litigator at a small firm. He is a partner at trial and investigations law firm Balestriere Fariello in New York, where he and his colleagues represent domestic and international clients in litigation, arbitration, appeals, and investigations. You can reach him by email at john.g.balestriere@balestrierefariello.com.

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