Brain Management for lawyers

“How does this neu­ro fron­tier inside our skulls specif­i­cal­ly inform law firm man­age­ment? By peer­ing inside the brain, we can see how its own­er takes in infor­ma­tion, makes deci­sions, changes and resists change, remem­bers and recalls, and responds to peo­ple. What we are learn­ing about the brain affects three fac­tors crit­i­cal to law firms and to each indi­vid­ual lawyer: con­trol, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and com­pe­tence. Let’s take a tour of some of what’s been learned and see how the new infor­ma­tion can be useful.”

This is part of the great arti­cle that Dr. Jef­frey M. Schwartz and Stephanie West Allen have writ­ten for the Feb­ru­ary, 2007 edi­tion of Of Coun­sel: The Legal Prac­tice and Man­age­ment Report, titled “Brain Man­age­ment: Law Firm Lead­er­ship on the Neu­ro Fron­tier” (Not avail­able online.)

You can read a bit more in Stephanie’s blog (a must-read blog for lawyers).   

In short: our actions can change our brains. Actu­al­ly, our thoughts can do so too. We all can ben­e­fit from “self-direct­ed neuroplasticity”-which requires prac­tice, imag­i­na­tion and empa­thy. The arti­cle men­tions spe­cif­ic exam­ples for lawyers.

Learn­ing assumes and induces neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty (how the brain changes).

How can you apply this to your occu­pa­tion? what have you learned today?

You can read more on a sim­i­lar top­ic, by Dr. Jef­frey M. Schwartz and David Rock: check out The Neu­ro­science of Lead­er­ship.