Legal skills

Understanding and adapting legal education to the changing needs of clients

Abstract

The movie A Few Good Men is known for the infamous line: ‘You can’t handle the truth.’ Less attention is placed on the dialogue that follows when Jack Nicholson’s character tells the attorney cross-examining him: ‘You have the luxury of not knowing what I know… I have greater responsibility than you can fathom.’ In imbuing lawyering skills, much of the academic focus has been on legal writing, research, analysis, and advocacy. Although, these skills remain the core requirements for lawyers in ‘handling the truth’, this article argues, however, that, particularly, in a world changed by the pandemic and artificial intelligence, lawyers will need to be able to offer more. There needs to be a move from a ‘linear’ approach to case progression which, typically, starts with the historical facts of the dispute presented at an initial lawyer-client interview and progresses to final hearing or settlement, to one in which lawyers need to consider the wider implications of the conflict that has arisen. Consideration must be given to the personal, financial, societal factors or responsibilities that may have contributed to the legal issue for the client and how these factors may potentially impact on the client’s autonomy to resolve the dispute.

In attempting to ensure that future lawyers ‘fathom’ the client perspective, this article will examine importance of legal educators underpinning design thinking in law by being cognisant of, and engaging law students with theory, to include Bronfenbrenner’s theory of the ‘ecology of human development’ and the extent to which being part of this wider ecology impacts on conflict and the way in which a dispute develops. It argues that a robust theoretical framework will aid understanding for a more ‘client-centred’, multi-disciplinary and therapeutic jurisprudential approach enhancing design thinking, such that future generations of lawyers develop the transversal skills required to take a wider, shared leadership perspective in addressing clients’ concerns in a more complete way. While this applies more specifically to future lawyers in common law jurisdictions, it is argued that such understanding will be important for anyone who wishes to use their law degree or training, in-house or in industry, whether working with teams of professionals, clients or customers across both common and civil law jurisdictions.