The Anxious Lawyer

The Anxious Lawyer provides a straightforward 8-week introductory program on meditation and mindfulness, created by lawyers for lawyers. The program draws on examples from Cho and Gifford's professional and personal lives to create an accessible and enjoyable entry into practices that can reduce anxiety, improve focus and clarity, and enrich the quality of life.

While naturally loquacious law professors, law students, lawyers, and judges thrive in a world dominated by the Socratic question-and-answer method and rapid-fire oral discourse, quiet thinkers and writers can be sidelined. The introverted Lawyer illuminates the valuable gifts that introverted, shy, and socially anxious individuals bring to the legal profession-including active listening, deep thinking, empathy, impactful legal writing, creative problem-solving, and thoughtful communication. The first half of this book: (1) explains the differences among introversion, shyness, and social anxiety and how each can manifest in the legal context, (2) explores the impact on quiet individuals of the push toward extroversion in law school and law practice, and (3) highlights greatly valued proficiencies that quiet individuals offer the legal profession through nurturing instead of repressing innate strengths. Further, to help quiet law students and lawyers become authentically powerful advocates, the second half of this book outlines a practical seven-step process to empower introverted, shy, and socially anxious individuals to amplify their voices without compromising their quiet assets. With increased self-awareness and a holistic approach, and buoyed by collaboratively compassionate and motivating professors and law office mentors, introverted, shy, and socially anxious law students and lawyers will transform the legal profession. Book jacket.

One L, Scott Turow's journal of his first year at law school and a best-seller when it was first published in 1977, has gone on to become a virtual bible for prospective law students. Not only does it introduce with remarkable clarity the ideas and issues that are the stuff of legal education; it brings alive the anxiety and competiveness--with others and, even more, with oneself--that set the tone in this crucible of character building. Each September, a new crop of students enter Harvard Law School to begin an intense, often grueling, sometimes harrowing year of introduction to the law. Turow's group of One Ls are fresh, bright, ambitious, and more than a little daunting. Even more impressive are the faculty. Will the One Ls survive? Will they excel? Will they make the Law Review, the outward and visible sign of success in this ultra-conservative microcosm? With remarkable insight into both his fellows and himself, Turow leads us through the ups and downs, the small triumphs and tragedies of the year, in an absorbing and thought-provoking narrative that teaches the reader not only about law school and the law but about the human beings who make them what they are. In the new afterword for this edition of One L, the author looks back on law school from the perspective of ten years' work as a lawyer and offers some suggestions for reforming legal education.

It is true that some people are very damaged. It is not true that they are all unsalvageable. The Lifer and the Lawyer raises questions about childhood trauma, religion, race, the purpose of punishment, and a criminal justice system that requires harmless old men to die in prison. It is a true story about Michael Anderson, an aging African American man who grew up poor and abused on Chicago's south side and became a violent and predatory criminal. Anderson has now spent the last forty-three years in prison as a result of a 1978 crime spree that took place in southeastern Washington. The book describes his spiritual and moral transformation in prison and challenges society's assumption that he was an irredeemable monster. It also tells the story of the author's evolving relationship with Anderson that began in 1979 when Critchlow, a young white lawyer from a privileged background, was appointed to defend Anderson on twenty-two violent felony charges. For Anderson, this is a story about overcoming childhood trauma and learning how to empathize and love through faith and self-knowledge. For Critchlow, the story also raises questions about how we become who we are--about race, culture, and opportunity. Finally, the book is a revealing commentary on our criminal justice system's obsession with life sentences.

The New York Times bestseller now in paperback! In her global phenomenon The 5 Second Rule, Mel Robbins taught millions of people around the world the five second secret to motivation. And in her latest bestseller, she shares another simple, proven tool you can use to take control of your life: The High 5 Habit. This isn’t a book about high fiving everyone else in your life. You’re already doing that. Cheering for your favorite teams. Celebrating your friends. Supporting the people you love as they go after what they want. But imagine giving that same love and encouragement to yourself. Or even better, making it a daily habit. In this book, you will learn more than a dozen powerful ways to high five the most important person in your life, the one who is staring back at you in the mirror: YOURSELF. Using her signature science-backed wisdom, deeply personal stories, and the real-life results that the High 5 Habit continues to create in people’s lives around the world, Mel teaches you how to make believing in yourself a habit you practice every day. The High 5 Habit is a holistic approach to life that changes your attitude, your mindset, and your behavior. So be prepared to laugh, learn, and launch yourself into a more confident, happy, and fulfilling life.

Landon Reed is an ex-quarterback convicted of organizing a points-shaving scheme. During his time in prison, he found forgiveness and faith and earned his law degree. Now he longs for an opportunity to prove his loyalty and worth. Be careful what you ask for. Harry McNaughton is one of the founding partners of McNaughton & Clay—and the only lawyer willing to take a chance employing an ex-con-turned-lawyer. Though Landon initially questions Harry’s ethics and methods, it’s clear the crusty old lawyer has one of the most brilliant legal minds Landon has ever encountered. The two dive into preparing a defense for one of the highest-profile murder trials Virginia Beach has seen in decades when Harry is gunned down in what appears to be a random mugging. Then two more lawyers are killed when the firm’s private jet crashes. Authorities suspect someone has a vendetta against McNaughton & Clay, leaving Landon and the remaining partner as the final targets. As Landon struggles to keep the firm together, he can’t help but wonder, is the plot related to a shady case from McNaughton & Clay’s past, or to the murder trial he’s neck-deep in now? And will he survive long enough to find out?

Written by Harvard-trained ex-law firm partner Liz Brown, Life After Law: Finding Work You Love with the J.D. You Have provides specific, realistic, and honest advice on alternative careers for lawyers. Unlike generic career guides, Life After Law shows lawyers how to reframe their legal experience to their competitive advantage, no matter how long they have been in or out of practice, to find work they truly love. Brown herself moved from a high-powered partnership into an alternative career and draws from this experience, as well as that of dozens of former practicing attorneys, in the book. She acknowledges that changing careers is hard much harder than it was for most lawyers to get their first legal job after law school but it can ultimately be more fulfilling for many than a life in law. Life After Law offers an alternative framework and valuable analytic tools for potential careers to help launch lawyers into new fields and make them attractive hires for non-legal employers.