Why Advocates Need Great Books!

I have fallen in love with the fiction and poetry of the late great Jim Harrison. 

His Midwestern roots underlie a literary style of directness, simplicity and honesty. His writing consistently circles back to themes that interest me: dogs, Zen, poetry, nature, sex, food and wine. He's never boring. Other writers who share his plainspoken voice include Raymond Carver and Thomas McGuane, also favorites of mine (and his). This trio all resemble  the writing of Hemingway, minus the self-promotion.

Like me, Harrison was a compulsive reader from an early age. From a recent posthumous publication of his essays, "The Search for the Genuine,"  Harrison describes (in third person) his early obsession with reading:

...He even read when he fished from their small rowboat, and he took a book along to read while resting from hunting. When he ran through the fields and forest he thought about what he would read next. He would be thinking about a book when he ran and collided with a tree or a bush, and once into the side of a barn, where he hurt his shoulder.

Without doubt, much of my success is attributable to lifelong zeal for literature and great books. 

What is a divorce case but a drama unfolding in real life, rather than on a stage, screen or page. I've often speculated that Shakespeare would have loved to sit in the gallery in family court, where passion and pathos play out daily. But to harness that energy, we need context. Great books provide that context–they teach us word craft, empathy, and storytelling, all necessary skills for the advocate.

Words are the raw material of our profession. In order to persuade, we must master them. And where do they reside? Books of course. This doesn't mean employing the pretentious writing style of someone looking to impress. Nor is flowery abstraction appropriate in legal writing. The name of the game is clarity and precision. The language of the law should be shorn of color and frills. The writers I have cited above use language clearly and simply, yet beautifully and with resonance. Let them be your tutors.

I've referenced this in other writings, but for me, the lawyer who best represents effective simplicity is David Boies, who speaks in a plain and unadorned manner, and by doing so, he makes himself understood–the true goal of an advocate. Watch and study him here. 

Beyond the notion of clarity, word choice matters. The power of words is illustrated by lawyer Lincoln in the Gettysburg address. A lesser mortal may have started the speech "that 80 plus years ago," rather than with the elegant "four score and seven years ago..." As Mark Twain, one of Lincoln's contemporaries quipped, “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

Great books also teach empathy, a necessary skill in the law. In 2013, in a study at The New School in New York City, researchers found evidence that literary fiction improves a reader’s empathic muscle: readers of literary fiction have an improved understanding of what others think and feel. Without question, family law requires a high degree of empathy to understand the pain and suffering of our often miserable clients. I believe empathy, if cultivated, can be a salve for many of the challenges we face in the profession. Understanding leads to clear thinking, which ultimately leads to better judgment and better decision making. 

Finally, storytelling skills are enhanced by reading stories. While the facts of our case are not fiction (hopefully!), we must shape them persuasively to galvanize the judge in our favor. By reading stories, whether fiction, non-fiction, or history, we learn how stories are crafted. We see how drama and comedy interplay to make the message sing. 

By reading great books, we develop insight into both our, and other’s humanity, which can then be translated into a convincing presentation in court. It is our humanness and the integration of life lessons that serve as the basis of a successful argument.

Reading the masters: Dickens, Shakespeare, Defoe, etc. provides great insights for the advocate. As Walter Scott’s fictional lawyer Pleydell observed in "Guy Mannering," "A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these he may venture to call himself an architect." 

If not for pure pleasure, I hope this essay inspires my colleagues to pick up a great book to become better human beings, and at the same time, better advocates. We work in a turbulent profession–in turbulent times–and an escape into great books provides a larger context, as well as a healthy outlet for our tribulations.  Back to Jim Harrison: “art and literature are as natural as the migration of birds or the inevitable collision of love and death.” In a profession where love and its death are omnipresent, find solace in great books. And know that in doing so, you are helping yourself stay true to your profession. 

The Right Hon. Lord Justice Birkett in “Law and Literature: The Equipment of the Lawyer” said it best when he declared: “To live in books with the great and wise spirits of all time is somehow to feel their virtue and mysteriously to share it; and all these things to the advocate in the exercise of his art are beyond rubies.” See you at the library.