Slow Down -- Trial Lawyer Practicing Tranquility Nearby
Check out Underdog's Blog post Practicing non-anger if you're feeling stressed and cranky. Because there's a riot of unruly pre-school children residing inside of me, I too center myself as often as possible by remembering that everything is internconnected. Here's what DUI attorney Jon Katz does to keep himself from boiling over.
One approach I try to use in staying consistently calm and not angry is in focusing on how everyone ultimately is interconnected. Those who reach such a view from a deeply-held religious perspective -- which I do not, still remaining an agnostic who is into Judaism and Buddhism nonetheless -- might have an easier time sticking to the view than I do.
In any event, the more we see that we are interconnected, the less we will be tempted to cause disharmony to others and the more we will want to help everyone rise as we rise, and not to try to pull them into a ditch even if we find ourselves in one.
Read the remainder of the post here.
I was just telling Mr. Thrifty over the dinner dishes that my life as a litigator got far far better when one of my biggest and most enduring pieces of litigation was assigned to Judge Carolyn Kuhl over at the Complex Court here in Los Angeles. She set such an even-tempered example that opposing counsel and I aspired to live up to it. We wanted to please her. Everything got better after that.
That led me to think about the way Judges' ill tempers effects their dockets. The Judge bats the attorneys around the courtroom like cat toys and they begin to behave like caged animals on an electrified grid. The attorneys behave badly and that irritates the Judge who demeans and belittles them. The attorneys then demean and belittle each other and everyone is trapped in the vicious cycle.
Maybe if Judges realized that they have this effect on attorneys, they'd adjust their own attitudes and see the attorney wrangling before them chill out a little.
Thanks for the wise words, Jon.
