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| | Inside A Lawyer’s Arsenal |
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< | -- By PushkarChaubal - 13 Feb 2023 |
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> | -- By PushkarChaubal - 17 May 2023 |
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< | Boardgame nights can be fun but also frustrating when most players don't know how to play the game. One can hardly blame them; most adults don't remember the rules of Monopoly from their childhood days. Thankfully, there's always one friend who knows the rules of the game down pat. That friend can then assist others and help them strategize their moves. |
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> | Boardgame nights can be fun but also frustrating when most players do not know how to play the game. One can hardly blame them; most adults don’t remember the rules of Monopoly from their childhood days. Thankfully, there’s always one friend who knows the rules of the game down pat. |
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< | I wasn't necessarily that friend when it came to board games, yet I do appreciate the fact that lawyers play a similar role in society at large. Lawyers are who individuals and businesses turn to when they need to know how to navigate the laws in society to achieve their ends, noble or otherwise. |
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> | I was not that friend when it came to board games, but I appreciate the fact that lawyers play a similar role in society at large. My first year of law school has taught me that the content we are learning is not necessarily conceptually difficult. However, it requires a tolerance for sifting through what seems like endless pages of difficult-to-decipher text. Few have such patience, but that was the appeal of law school for me. Effective lawyers, to me, are masters of the use of words and are able to wield language skillfully to deliver justice, manage risks, or close deals on behalf of her or his client. |
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How about "to manage their risks"? What would that change in the frame open up as alternative conceptions?
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< | Words are perhaps the most important tool in a lawyer's arsenal. |
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As opposed to what other tools?
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> | My Relationship with Words as an Adult |
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> | My relationship with written language, however, was corroded as soon as a graduated from undergrad. After majoring in finance and management information systems, I went into the management consulting field. As a young consultant, I quickly fell prey to the partners and managing directors. These partners used their oral and written skills to cover up rubbish and manipulate people exactly the way they wanted to. Promises made yesterday were null and void the next day. |
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< | Skillfully wielded, this tool becomes a powerful weapon that a lawyer can use to drive success for his clients. I have always had an appreciation for reading and reasoning, and I came to law school to sharpen my tools. |
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> | The disgust these partners inspired in me infected my relationship with words themselves. As someone who excelled in subjects like literature, history, and political science, the fact that words could be wielded for such self-serving objectives made me incredibly cynical to the point where I thought my relationship with words was fractured forever. |
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If words are primarily conceived of as weapons, then they are unusually inutile tools, are they not? Most human tools, let alone words, are employed constructively, don't you think?
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> | However, during the lockdowns brought on by the epidemic, I found myself with spare time and was drawn to my parents’ copy of the Bhagavad Gita. This Sanskrit literature gave me the strength to make it through COVID-19 and effectively ended my literary depression. |
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> | Now that I am in law school, I conceive that lawyers wield words as weapons to get their clients what they want. |
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< | Words as Empty Utility |
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< | Few professions train their practitioners to focus so intently on the written word in the same way as in the law. It is hard to imagine something else as versatile as words. The same language we use to chat with our buddies and spark conversation with people we are interested in is the same language that was used to frame our central system of government. |
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< | Words can have a powerful effect, but it is also easy to become jaded. I started my career in management consulting and saw firsthand how partners at the firm used their oral and written skills to cover up rubbish. Mediocre managers would oftentimes be cavalier with their words, not fully recognizing the power that they had on their teams and clients. Seasoned partners, however, were much more intentional. I quickly noticed, however, that the words that came out of the mouths of partners were often empty. Promises made yesterday were null and void the next day. |
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> | What now? |
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< | This gave rise to a strange dichotomy for me. At an early stage in my career, I saw that words could effectively be meaningless to the speaker yet have incredible power on the receiver. As long as the socially attuned partner was careful with his word choice and tonality, he could sell sand in a desert. Partners could enter a room with a hostile group of clients, and, using nothing but their conversational skills, completely change the dynamic of the room to where the clients were not only pacified, but actively rooting for us. |
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> | My first year of law school has shown me how effective lawyers can wield words as weapons to get their clients what they want. As recent high-profile cases have showed us, talents like these are powerful, and can be used for a myriad of purposes. |
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< | After three years of being around manipulative partners, I had appreciation for their talent but was simultaneously cynical. Words, to them, were just tools to gain advantage and could be disregarded as easily as they were uttered. Words could have very little link to the truth yet influence people's actions. As someone who grew up with a love of language arts, I was discouraged. Was the "real world" all fake and insincere? |
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> | All my life, I have sought to achieve success in the corporate world, and I came to law school squarely with that mission in mind. Indian Americans have it instilled in them from early childhood that they must be masters of their domain, and my upbringing was no different. Due to said upbringing, I am acutely focused on how I can embrace the masterful use of words to advance my career trajectory. |
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< | Words as a Medium For Wisdom |
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> | Using words for my career |
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< | When COVID-19 lockdowns first began, my consulting team stopped weekly travel to our client site. Without the 14-hour round trip commute every week, I found myself with much more time on my hands. |
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> | My goal since undergrad was to end up in private equity. While business school might have been the more straightforward path, I was drawn to law school because I wanted to be powerful with my words and have a more tactical understanding of the underlying legal framework that drives the business world. The idea is to be well-versed in a wide variety of corporate law, such as securities, transactions, and intellectual property. |
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< | With the stress and anxiety brought on with the uncertainty of COVID, I turned to spirituality. However, I didn't know where to start. My family is Hindu, and, while I subscribe to core beliefs, I had never read any of the literature firsthand. |
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> | Put simply, my ultimate vision is to be a trusted advisor to C-suite executives. I want to bring my strategy consulting and my legal experience to bear so that I can give my clients the advice they need to exceed their business objectives, while adhering to securities law and industry-specific regulations. I see myself fundamentally in a business strategy role, with the law as a guiding framework. |
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< | Given my spare time, I found a copy of my parents' Bhagavad Gita. It was translated into English and was surprisingly approachable. I had grown up listening to my parents' informal lessons on the Gita, but this was the first time I dove into the text. The insights I gained from that readthrough were nothing short of lifechanging. The Gita encourages followers to give up fear and anxiety, and instead single-mindedly perform one's "task," whatever that may be. That mentality is what drove me to study for the LSAT again. |
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> | The more I ponder my career path, however, the more I doubt whether a role in private equity will allow me to have that cross-sectional function of business strategy and law. From what I have read recently, the job of a PE associate is mostly a financial one, with little to no touchpoint with the law. I would need to have more conversations with private equity associates to understand more about what their day-to-day entails, and to what extent I would be able to add value with my diverse skillsets. While making money is important to me, I want to be in a position to drive differentiated value by bringing all my experience to bear. |
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< | Reading the Gita was the first domino that led me to where I am today. Not only am I grateful for the book's advice, but it also reinvigorated my love for the written word. After spending 3+ years with high functioning sociopaths at work who defiled words for personal gain, words in the context of the Gita were once again my friends. It was words that were imparting centuries-old wisdom to me. My experience reading the Gita led me to read 12 additional books in a 4-month span. Between March 2020 to July 2020, I read books ranging from habit formation and negotiation to fiction titles. |
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> | What would bring me even more happiness and long-term career fulfillment is if I could start my own practice. As we discussed from various readings over the course of the semester, having the courage to start one’s own practice allows one to shape it exactly the way one wants. My ideal firm would be a hybrid law firm and management consulting business. Put simply, I want to be my clients’ go-to advisors for anything their business might need. For example, if an electronics manufacturing client wants to expand into a hot, cutting-edge product category, I want to be poised to advise the client on the best way to go to market, while making sure that they are keeping abreast of legal regulations in that business line and they are structuring any new legal entities properly in order to reduce their tax liability. While a practice of this nature is relatively unique and thus may be high-risk, it is the kind of practice would give me lasting joy and fulfillment. I really enjoy solving complex business problems, and I believe that having a transactional legal practice attached to it will allow my firm to implement the strategies and see it come to fruition. |
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< | Words, I realized, did not have to be wielded strictly for deception. Sociopathic uses of words were commonplace in some business settings, but words could just as easily be used to impart knowledge and wisdom for the betterment of ones' self and ones' society.
Words as a Swiss Army Knife
Having worked for 4 years out of college and survived my first semester of law school, I now think of words as a Swiss Army knife. While they can be used for manipulation, they can also be a source of structure, advocacy, and self-improvement. Clearly, words are more than just gusts of complicated airflow. In the right hands, words can be combined with logic to realize strategic aims for a lawyer and his clients.
Law school can be a passive exercise where one simply goes through the motions. Or, given a little intentionality, it can be a laboratory for the creative exercise of language and logic. As a lawyer, I want to strive to help my clients realize their goals by mastering the art of words. And, as a law student, I want to challenge myself to take classes and seek opportunities where I can further refine my skills and sharpen my tools of words and logic.
The highly general language of this draft's conclusion seems to me to indicate the route to improvement, which is focus. The present draft is the rather diffuse halo of the central idea it doesn't yet state. Reduced to essentials, it says: "I worked for 'management consultants' who were flim-flam artists. The disgust they inspired in me infected my relationship with words themselves. The Sanskrit literature in translation to which I turned for spiritual exercise during the epidemic ended my literary depression and I started reading again. Now I am in law school and I conceive that lawyers wield words as weapons to get their clients what they want." That does very well one of the most important functions of a first draft: to clear away the brush and show the question around which the next draft can grow. In this case, we might say the question is, "so what?" We can condense the existing jumping off point; even if my 67 words are too few, 100 would surely do it. Then we can ask what the generalities in your conclusion specifically mean with plenty of space for a good answer.
Pushkar - I enjoyed seeing a bit of your perspective on a lawyer's use of words. I am curious how you would recommend developing the skill of using one's words effectively while in law school. This could be an interesting companion piece with my first essay which discusses the other side of the coin, listening.
-Richard
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> | In this way, I can use mere words to effect large-scale business outcomes, all while deciding the direction of my consulting and legal practice. My next steps would include understanding how to acquire my first clients. |
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