11 Qualities or Skills for a Successful lawyer
11 Qualities or Skills for a Successful lawyer
What makes a good lawyer? Practicing as an advocate requires you to demonstrate a number of core skills and attributes. The core skills and attributes you will be expected to develop to successfully practicing as an advocate are varied.
1. Good communication or negotiation skills:-
Lawyers or advocates must posse excellent communication skills, both oral as well as written. Communication skill is a key success factor that must not depart from that mouth of any good lawyer. Law is not an abstract practice or excise to involve only certain activities. To be a good advocate it doesn’t matter you study hard and how well you scored academically but it matters only how you deal with the people and interact with them. A lawyer must be persuasive and have an acquired ability to read others.
2. Decision-making skills:-
A good lawyer should have the ability to draw reasonable, logical conclusions or assumptions from limited information. Anticipate and spot the possible event and happening, analyze the positive and negative areas of the case to prepare the same in such a manner that is beneficial and in the favour and taken into consideration the interest of the client.
3. Analytical skills and Logical thinking ability:-
If you want to be a good advocate or lawyer, you should have the ability to look at any situation and analyze it from all the points of view. A criminal defence advocate has to look at the case from the view of the prosecutor, and vice versa. To absorb large volumes of data and be able to distill it into something manageable, you need to have analytical skills, and this goes without saying.
4. Research skills:-
Being a good advocate you should have the ability to research quickly and effectively which is essential to understand your clients, their needs, and preparing legal strategies.
5. Perseverance:-
The mere act of becoming a lawyer requires a lot of commitment. A lawyer has to spend many hours preparing the case. They spend a lot of time conducting research, preparing documents and interviewing witness. Perseverance is the skill on the one side and attitude on the other. I want to confess perseverance is the nature and attitude which develops the capability to deal and perform the activities and task assigned productively and constructively with the numerous and variety full events which in further embodies distractions.
6. Creativity in problem solving:-
The top or excellent lawyers are not only logical and analytical, but they display a great deal of creativity in their problem-solving. The best solution is not always the most obvious and it is often necessary to think outside the box to overcome its challenges.
The best way to create unique solutions is to approach each situation with compassionate listening, which enables you to really understand the issues and what the client and the adversary need. That the level of understanding can lead to a long-lasting solution that works for all interested parties.
7. Writing and drafting skills:-
To be a great lawyer, tremendous writing and drafting skills are needed which are useful and beneficial while preparing the case arguments, briefs, and other legal documents.
8. Listening skills:-
To be a great lawyer or advocate one must have and possess the quality and skill to listen to each, and every individual tends to speak before him, develop the ability to listen to others patiently and carefully.
In practical, this skill helps the lawyer and their practice in every possible manner so as to cross-examine the witness or to the finding of the opposite counsel and facilitate in an effective rebuttal.
9. Attention to detail:-
A sharp eye for accuracy is critical to the success of your legal career. A single word out of place can change the entire meaning of a clause or contract, while miss-spelled or ungrammatical emails, letters or documents can give clients a bad impression, costing your firm their business.
10. Comprehension skills:-
To be a great lawyer you should have comprehension skill which means one must have the ability to comprise many topics and small details to study, so it is important to absorb the information in an organized and a sensible manner.
11. Compassion:- Emotional balance:-
Compassion is an emotional response whereby one perceives another’s problem and authentically, genuinely wants to help resolve the problem. People come to us with their problems, or to avoid future problems and we help resolve or avoid the issues, whichever the case maybe.
Compassion is the foundation for good people skills. Without compassion, you cannot put yourself in your client’s shoes or fully understand the issues your client faces.
If you want to be an excellent lawyer than you must have all these above mentioned ability. These are also the skills which require to be a lawyer namely,
General education, Firmness, Patience, Leadership skills, Being organized, etc.
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