5 Life Lessons from the Courtroom that Apply to You
From the first time I stepped into the courtroom, it was my greatest classroom. Twenty years in the courtroom as a trial attorney taught me valuable lessons about winning, losing, persuading, and listening that have benefited me in my personal relationships, career, and entrepreneurial journey.
As a trial consultant, I work with witnesses to help them advocate for themselves — whether they’re answering tough questions in depositions or testifying before a jury. I always tell them the same thing: The tools you learn for court will serve you everywhere. Because the courtroom is more than a legal arena. It’s a metaphor for life.
Robert Fulgham said that ‘All I Really Need to Know I Learned In Kindergarten,” but I believe all you need to know you can learn in the courtroom. Here are 5 examples.
1-Everyone has a jury.
In the courtroom, the jury gives you your wins. They’re a group of twelve people tasked with listening to a multitude of stories and evidence and then deciding what they believe. When you build their belief in you and your case, you win.
Leaders have juries. They’re the people who follow them or who they hope will follow. For teachers, the jury can be students. Salespeople have a jury of prospects, and CEOs have a jury of board members. Doctors have a jury of patients, and parents have a jury of children (while children have a jury of parents).
You might have eight different juries on a given day. First, you want your child to eat their orange at breakfast, then you want your colleague to help you with your deck for the big meeting. At the big meeting, the jury is the committee that decides whether you get the resources you’re requesting, and when you do, your jury becomes your boss who decides the next steps. When you get home and you want to forget about the chicken you planned for dinner and get pizza instead, your partner becomes your jury.
You have a jury. When you recognize that you do, and it’s your job to build their belief, you will win far more often.
2-Know your jury.
In court, we have a very short time to get to know our jury. We try to use that time to know as much about them as possible. Where are they from, do they have children, what kind of work do they do, and what are their politics? These are the types of questions we might ask to get to know our juries. The better we can know and understand them, the better we can decide which stories, evidence, and energy will resonate with them.
If you want to influence and persuade your jury, you have to know them as well. Understanding your child and whether they’re low or high energy in the morning may help you know how to make that orange appealing. Knowing your colleague and what problem you can help him with may help you negotiate with him to get help with your deck. When you know the committee members in the meeting, you can tell a story that allows them to see how giving you the resources you’ve requested for your project also helps them. The better you know your boss and what keeps her up at night, the better you’ll be able to persuade her to give you the reins on the project and the resources moving forward. And when you know how much your partner loves pizza from Patsy’s but not Tito’s, you can offer to pick up Patsy’s on the way home.
When you know your jury, you know how to advocate to them effectively. Knowing my jury has been the key to my wins in and outside of the courtroom.
3-Confusion is the enemy.
In the courtroom, it’s easy to see the opposing counsel as the adversary. But that mindset leads to aggression, defensiveness, and anger. Juries feel that energy, and they rarely like it, especially from the defense. They want to see a doctor who is reasonable, a nurse who is measured and calm.
I once prepared a doctor for deposition who was furious at the patient’s lawyer. He believed the lawyer had manipulated the case, and maybe he had. But I knew that his anger at the lawyer wouldn’t help him win. It would only make him look bitter and unlikable to the jury.
So I gave him a new adversary: confusion.
Confusion is what brought us into the courtroom. The patient was confused about what caused her complication. Confusion is what loses cases. When juries are confused about the medicine (which can be complicated and overwhelming), the defense loses. If we could eliminate confusion by explaining the medicine, clarifying the care, and helping the jury understand, we could win.
The same is true outside the courtroom. When you learn to view confusion as an enemy, your energy and plans shift.
Your child isn’t defiant. They’re confused about what helps them feel good. Your colleague isn’t selfish. He’s confused about how your success benefits the team. Your boss isn’t resistant. She’s confused about whether you’re ready.
When you treat confusion — not people — as the enemy, your energy shifts. You become calm, clear, and curious. You plan to slay confusion with clarity instead of trying to slay your adversary with your ire. And those are the shifts that win.
4-If you’re not losing, you’re not trying.
I tried close to 100 cases and lost three of them. For the first eight years of my career, I’d never lost, and it became a huge problem for me. I became petrified of losing. People expected me to win, and I expected myself to win. It made me more cautious, more likely to agree to settle, and more afraid of the courtroom. Winning was starting to feel like an albatross around my neck. Then I lost my first case.
I was devastated and embarrassed. I didn’t want to go back to the office and face my partners or my colleagues. I took a day off to sleep (trials are exhausting), but I had to return to the office to get working on my next case. I snuck into my office, shut the door, and immediately the phone rang. It was an acquaintance from another defense firm, someone I knew but never particularly liked until that day. I answered the phone reluctantly.
“Hi Heather. I just read about your case, and I wanted to reach out. We’ve all been there sooner or later. Remember, if you’re not losing, you’re not trying.”
He was so right. The only way I could avoid losing was to settle the tough cases. I could make sure that I never risked losing by never going into the courtroom unless I felt very sure there was no way I could lose. And I practiced in Philadelphia, which is a notoriously bad venue for doctors and hospitals. If I tried to avoid losing, there was a real possibility that I’d never try another case. I wasn’t willing to let that happen.
You’ve got to take risks outside of the courtroom, too. You might lose, but if you do, you can use it as evidence that you’re trying. Losing is evidence that you’re putting yourself out there and taking risks with your pride. It’s the key to your wins.
5-You get to define a win.
The Cambridge dictionary defines “win” as “to receive something positive because you’ve earned it”. I love that definition. In the courtroom, winning is a zero-sum game. Someone wins and someone loses. As such, it can make people aggressive, defensive, and untrustworthy. As a young attorney, I would have told you this definition of “win” doesn’t apply in the courtroom. Now I know it does.
I lost three cases in my career, and I learned more from those three cases than from all of my wins. Some of my wins I don’t even remember. Just the other day, my mentee reminded me of a case I’d completely forgotten. But those losses left me with lessons I’ll never forget.
Those learnings were “something positive,” and I earned them by advocating. I earned them by taking risks and putting myself and my reputation on the line. In one case, I learned a great deal about negotiating (we had negotiated a high-low agreement). In another, I learned about listening to my intuition. My losses were my greatest teachers.
Outside of the courtroom, your “something positive” could be so many things. It could be getting that promotion, raise, opportunity, or investment, and you might have earned it by advocating. It could also be increased confidence and credibility with yourself, and you earned it by keeping a promise you made to yourself. It could be the respect of a colleague, and you earned it by remembering that confusion was the enemy and staying cool during conflict.
When we look to the courtroom for guidance, we can start to gather our wins wherever we go. The lessons I learned in the courtroom made me a well-respected trial attorney. More importantly, they made me a better human.
