We believe that Emotionally Intelligent Attorneys would be a great asset to the legal profession and help champion the need for Therapeutic Jurisprudence in their dealings both in and out of the courtroom. The problem is that Attorneys are trained to think analytically and are emotionally unintelligent. Many are interpersonally underdeveloped, and as inimical as the legal system within which they operate.
Legal education develops them to " suppose like a counsel." Law academy trains scholars to dissect, and eloquently speak of legal issues. According to Scott Turow, a counsel, who told his first time attending Harvard Law School, " it is during the first time that you learn to suppose like a counsel, to develop the habits of the mind and world perspective that will stay with you throughout your career." After completing his first time at law academy, Turow observed that Law schools attract people least suited to them at the launch.
" We're men and women drawn to the study of rules, people with a native taste for order." It isn't surprising that when these scholars with the " taste of order" on their speeches become attorneys, they are skilled to " suppose" like attorneys, but are ill-equipped to effectively perform as attorneys.
Law professor Marjorie Shultz, and psychology professor Sheldon Zedeck, in a much-cited empirical study, developed twenty-six effective" factors that rehearsing attorneys, law scholars, judges, and guests viewed as " important to effective lawyering performance." Each of those twenty-six factors falls within the four branches of emotional intelligence. Shultz and Zedeck assert that " emotional intelligence could be important to attorneys who must manage relations with guests, juries, judges and associates."
Further, emotional intelligence helps attorneys' read and interpret whether dispatches between attorneys and others are being understood."
Shultz and Zedeck organized their counsel effectiveness factors into eight groups," including (1) intellectual and cognitive, (2) exploration and information gathering, (3) dispatches, (4) planning and organizing, (5) conflict resolution, (6) customer and business relations-entrepreneurship, (7) working with others, and (8) character. Each order identifies aspects of lawyering effectiveness.
Prof.Lakshman Madurasinghe
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