Lawyers' Desirable Personality Attributes
Thursday, 22 September 2011
Year 11 work experience student Teneill Keenan from Mansfield State High School delves into the "personality of a lawyer"...
Lawyers have got to be the easiest people to get along with. On a day to day basis they deal with so many different personality types and try to solve their problems. It is true that not all of the people out there are as friendly as you or I which makes a lawyer’s job much more difficult. The only way lawyers would be able to deal with so many different clients so frequently would be if they had these most desirable, personality attributes.So what are these desirable personality traits that lawyers have and why can’t everyone have them? From what I have seen, developing a lawyer's personality takes a lifetime and constant effort.
It is well known that people can trust lawyers with anything as everything you say to them is strictly confidential. Being trustworthy is definitely a desirable trait that is demonstrated by lawyers.
Another desirable attribute lawyers possess is incredible time management. Not many people realise how much a lawyer has to do all at once. When a new client comes to them with a brand new issue they don’t realise that the lawyer is 99% of the time in the middle of solving many other problems. When this happens it is important for a lawyer to be able to spend their time effectively so they can get everything done and on time as well.
Co-operation and confidence go hand in hand when dealing with the law and are also desirable personality traits for anybody. Lawyers have to co-operate with confidence. Confidence is essential for obvious reasons – clients come to lawyers for advice because the client isn’t confident; if the lawyer isn’t confident that’s when problems start.
Studies have shown that law students are the most stressed type of student and have higher rates of depression than other students - other studies have shown the same to be true of legal professionals. This may be due to the types of problems and issues lawyers have to deal with and some of them can really have a negative impact on the lawyer if they haven’t developed a coping mechanism to deal with the issues/themes involved in the matter. Lawyers also become stressed by the workload that is given to them in a short period of time without warning and this happens frequently, so the ability to deal with this is another desirable trait of a lawyer.