{"id":526,"date":"2015-09-01T17:05:58","date_gmt":"2015-09-01T17:05:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ubaltlawcfcc.wordpress.com\/?p=526"},"modified":"2015-09-01T17:05:58","modified_gmt":"2015-09-01T17:05:58","slug":"teaching-soft-skills-in-a-type-a-profession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/2015\/09\/01\/teaching-soft-skills-in-a-type-a-profession\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching Soft Skills in a Type-A Profession"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ashley Bond, CFCC Student Fellow 2015-2016<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you get out of law school, you\u2019ll realize that you never learned a thing about how to be a lawyer.\u00a0 You just learned the law.\u201d\u00a0 My supervising attorney stated this during my first legal internship.\u00a0 At the time, I knew that he was referring to such topics as \u201chow to write a pleading\u201d and \u201chow to run your own practice.\u201d\u00a0 Now, however, I\u2019ve begun to interpret his words with a new meaning.\u00a0 Law schools may also be lacking in the subject of soft skills.<\/p>\n

Throughout my time in law school, I have often heard classmates describe themselves or other colleagues as \u201cType-A.\u201d \u00a0This term, coined by Friedman and Rosenman, describes people with personality traits such as competitiveness, time urgency, and hostility. [1] There is no doubt that many of these characteristics are extremely beneficial in the practice of the law.\u00a0 In fact, the kind of work ethic exhibited by a Type-A personality is praised in such a competitive field.\u00a0 When preparing for a career in which one is of service to their clients, shouldn\u2019t other skills be emphasized?\u00a0 Perhaps law schools would better prepare their graduates if they required each student to take a \u201csoft skills\u201d course.<\/p>\n

Soft skills include the patience necessary to listen to a frantic client, the empathy necessary to understand your client\u2019s viewpoint, and the communication skills necessary to convey complex legal concepts to an emotional client who may not understand a thing about the law.\u00a0\u00a0 These are skills that for some may come naturally but for others may take practice. \u00a0They are skills that often clash with Type-A personality traits.<\/p>\n

Studies show that the top-performing lawyers have higher competencies than other lawyers in areas such as stress management, self-knowledge, problem solving, and interpersonal competencies. [2] Additionally, practicing lawyers consider soft skills as essential to lawyering as legal skills.\u00a0 [3] \u00a0\u00a0If this is true, shouldn\u2019t law schools emphasize these skills, as well?<\/p>\n

The Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for Families, Children and the Courts (CFCC) Student Fellows Program takes this approach at the University of Baltimore School of Law.\u00a0 Professor Barbara Babb and CFCC staff teach each Student Fellow to utilize our soft skills when speaking to Baltimore City public school students participating in CFCC\u2019s Truancy Court Program.\u00a0 As a member of the Truancy Court Program team, I look forward to using this experience to develop my soft skills.\u00a0 Further, I urge other law students to join the Student Fellows Program, or any other similar program, to help them develop their soft skills.<\/p>\n

[1] Type A Personality<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.simplypsychology.org\/personality-a.html<\/p>\n

[2] The Soft Skills of Lawyering.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/lawprofessors.typepad.com\/legal_skills\/2011\/12\/friday-academic-program-on-the-soft-skills-of-lawyering.html<\/p>\n

[3]\u00a0 Id.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ashley Bond, CFCC Student Fellow 2015-2016 \u201cOnce you get out of law school, you\u2019ll realize that you never learned a thing about how to be a lawyer.\u00a0 You just learned the law.\u201d\u00a0 My supervising attorney stated this during my first legal internship.\u00a0 At the time, I knew that he was referring to such topics…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4132"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cfcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}