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In an article I read recently by Todd R. Brown about lawyers and lawyering, he wrote:

Courtroom theatrics make for reliable TV drama, and they might sway real juries pondering emotional cases. But the pyrotechnic rhetoric of a hard-charging litigator is a world apart from everyday client salesmanship.

Wow!!

Brown goes on to say:

Teaching effective soft skills that every businessperson should know to relate to customers, managers, colleagues and subordinates hasn’t always been a top priority in law, but it should be.

Double Wow and Holy Cow !!! A game-changing discovery!

CLIENTS ARE PEOPLE  even clients looking for litigators.

And in the same article, Ely Anderson was quoted as saying:

There are brilliant attorneys who don’t enjoy selling. Not everyone enjoys the whole business development aspect,” she says. “If you’re going to be successful in your job, you really have to be focused on developing clients rather than just the marketing.

How about that? People skills are necessary for dealing with people!

Who’d'a’thunk it?

Emotional connection, sensitivity to client needs, listening — really listening,  getting beyond narcissism, grasping the fact of interdependence, co-operation rather than one-way dictating, empathy, and consciousness are the heart and soul of the Soft Sell approach — Soft Sell connecting.

Given our adversarial judicial system, yes, you want your litigator to do his/her job in court. But to do that your litigator has to get to know you deeply, not just cognitively. It’s not just about gray matter. It’s also a matter of heart — which Brown and Anderson imply.

And why?

Because It’s all in the Connection,

Jim