Soft Power

On Twitter, Judge Roy Ferguson recently recounted a fun moment in family court. Incidentally, Judge Ferguson was also the presiding judge in the infamous “I’m not a cat” Zoom court appearance.

In a family law trial, a self-employed father was underestimating his income to minimize his child support. On cross examination, the adverse attorney advised him that before addressing his income, he would first ask about the father’s ability to provide suitable housing for the child. 

When challenged, the defensive father angrily itemized all he provided for the child at his home. As Judge Ferguson observed, “His lawyer sat smugly and watched his client seemingly push the other attorney around and embarrass him for an hour.” The examining lawyer, when done with the questioning, meekly sat down, apparently acknowledging his whipping. 

At closing, the modest lawyer, seemingly defeated a few moments earlier, turned the tables.  He presented a demonstrative exhibit, summarizing–expense by expense– the father’s expenditures, which well exceeded his declared income. Judge Ferguson ordered maximum child support. 

The cocky lawyer for the father was astonished by the ruling and blurted out, “what happened?” What happened was this: a “soft” examination” beat the “hard heads” of the witness and his cocky lawyer. 

As Judge Ferguson observed in his tweet, “Neither he nor his client saw it coming, precisely because the [opposing] attorney let them believe that the respondent dominated the exchange.  Play to their weaknesses, not just your strengths. This attorney gently challenged a narcissist's ego and feigned weakness. If the attorney had battered the guy, he would have fought back. Instead, he rolled out the red carpet--and the witness proudly walked it with head held high.”

I had a similar experience a few years ago. My client, a prominent dentist, was charged with abusing her infant child (breaking 26 of his bones). The accuser was a child abuse pediatrician on staff at a well known Chicago children’s hospital. Our expert was a pediatric orthopedic surgeon and professor of medicine at the University of Chicago. He opined that the child suffered from a bone disease caused by a calcium deficiency. 

When it was my turn to cross examine the imperious child abuse doctor, I asked him about his extraordinary credentials, as though I was in awe of his brilliance. I went through a litany of the numerous skills he needed to properly diagnose child abuse. “So doctor, in order to do your job, you must necessarily have expertise in…( emergency medicine, hematology, radiology, pediatric medicine, orthopedic medicine, renal medicine, etc.). 

I let him brag about all of his varied expertise in these disciplines. The state’s attorney thought I ‘d lost my mind  by letting him talk about all of his skills. But I hadn’t lost my mind–just the opposite–I was setting a trap.

At the closing, I distinguished the two experts’ credentials. I argued that the child abuse doctor’s expertise was a mile wide and an inch deep, while our expert’s credentials drilled down to the earth’s core. Our expert both practiced and taught only one thing every day, and as a result, was more reliable concerning the cause of the child’s broken bones. The court agreed, and reunited the parents with their children. (The case was featured in the Atlantic. Read about it here.)

Not unlike the lawyer in Judge Ferguson’s case, I used soft power–turning the witness's own energy against him. As water erodes mountains, the soft will overcome the hard. 

When I was a kid, inspired by my idol Bruce Lee, I studied judo for a hot minute.  While my judo practice didn’t last very long,  I internalized its principles: don’t meet the force of your opponents head on; rather use their force and redirect it to your advantage. 

Jigoro Kondo, the founder of judo wrote in 1882, “we occasionally come up against an opponent who is frantic in his desire to win. We are trained not to resist directly with force but to play with the opponent until his fury and power are exhausted, then attack. This lesson comes in handy when we encounter such a person in daily life.” Keep this in mind next time you confront an avaricious opponent. 

Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido and author of the “Art of Peace,” adopts a similar paradigm of soft power. Ueshiba writes, “In the Art of Peace we never attack. An attack is proof that one is out of control. Never run away from any kind of challenge, but do not try to suppress or control an opponent unnaturally. Let attackers come any way they like and then blend with them. Never chase after opponents. Redirect each attack and get firmly behind it.

Ueshiba continues, “Opponents confront us continually, but actually there is no opponent there. Enter deeply into an attack and neutralize it as you draw that misdirected force into your own sphere.”

The Roman Stoics applied a related doctrine to their lives: finding opportunities in obstacles. How can one find and exploit the opportunities inherent in the difficulties we confront? Where does the opportunity lie? It's usually there if you can be still and think. Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius reminded himself daily to remember this. 

So next time you confront a difficulty, whether it be a challenging opponent or legal briar patch, figure out how to harness the negative energy to your advantage. Start by going inside. “Be still and be silent…” This is where the opportunity lies. Tap into the stillness and discover your real real power.