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By Stephen Rispoli

Lawyers have a responsibility to seek opportunities to make a positive difference in their communities. This can be done through pro bono work, serving on the board of a governmental or non-profit organization, simply volunteering time or resources in the community, or persuading their law firms or companies to fight for justice and equality for all. Leadership is the act of getting involved and effecting change – regardless of your title or position. These things are possible because lawyers have a special set of skills.

Leadership is the act of getting involved and effecting change – regardless of your title or position. These things are possible because lawyers have a special set of skills.

Stephen Rispoli

But how do you conceptualize leadership or go about doing it? To me, leadership is simply advocacy in another context. Advocacy is traditionally thought of as a skill to be utilized in the courtroom or the boardroom for your client. It is the art of persuading others that your client’s position is the correct one. Leadership is no different, except that it may be your position for which you are advocating.

There is another important difference between courtroom or boardroom advocacy and leadership advocacy. In the courtroom and the boardroom, there are a lot of rules relating to the proper method of advocacy and their boundaries: the rules of evidence, rules of procedure, and ethics rules, to name a few. However, there are not rules about how you convince others to make change within your organization. There is no guidebook to convincing your fellow partners, over whom you have no authority to tell them to do something, or your superiors in an organization. Instead, you must convince them that the course of action you are proposing is the correct one. Rather than following the rules of procedure to determine the best path forward, you must use emotional intelligence and tailor your approach to each situation and each person differently. Such conversations and actions take nuance and understanding of not only the person but also the organization in which you are operating. It is a complex and difficult undertaking.

The good news is that leadership studies have been around for quite some time and can be applied to the special role that lawyers play. There are even several excellent books specific to lawyers that are already out. To get your library started, here are several books that address the topic of leadership for lawyers:

1. Deborah Rhode, Lawyers as Leaders, 2016
2. Deborah Rhode, Leadership for Lawyers, 2018
3. Robert Cullen, The Leading Lawyer: A Guide to Practicing Law and Leadership, 2010
4. Paula Monopoli and Susan McCarty, Law and Leadership: Integrating Leadership Studies into the Law School Curriculum, 2017 (compilation of articles on the subject of teaching leadership in law schools)

To elaborate on the themes of our first post, we created this blog to jot down our thoughts on leadership, change-making, advocacy, and how to do it. In this blog, we’ll cover specific topics of leadership (such as choosing the right leadership style to deal with specific situations), our thoughts on particular topics, book reviews, upcoming leadership events, and posting scholarly articles from which leadership lessons can be learned.

-SLR

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