I have spent a considerable portion of my professional life listening to people talk. Some of them are very good at it. Some are not. Some say precisely what they mean, while others take the scenic route and eventually arrive somewhere completely unexpected. Lawyers are particularly interesting in this regard because we are professionally trained to make arguments, ask questions, explain things, and, occasionally, talk far longer than anyone intended. I have been known to observe that attorneys love to hear themselves talk. I say this as an attorney, so I am not exactly throwing stones from a neighboring profession.
But there is a difference between hearing someone and actually listening to them. Hearing happens whether you intend for it to or not. Listening requires attention. It requires curiosity, patience, and sometimes the willingness to hear something you would rather not hear. Over the years, particularly through courtroom experience, I have learned that some of the most important information is found in the moments when you stop preparing your response and start paying attention to the person in front of you.
Listening Requires More Than Waiting for Your Turn
There is a particular kind of listening that is not really listening at all. Someone is speaking, but instead of absorbing what they are saying, you are already preparing your response. You are thinking about your next question, your next argument, or the point you want to make. You may even be nodding thoughtfully while mentally composing an entirely different conversation.
I think most of us have done this. Lawyers simply have more opportunities to do it professionally.
In a courtroom, that habit can become particularly dangerous. A witness may give an answer that contains something important, unexpected, or contradictory, and if you are so focused on asking the next question that you miss it, you have lost something you may not get back. The same applies when speaking with a client. The details that seem insignificant to someone unfamiliar with the situation may be precisely the details that change how a lawyer understands the problem. You cannot identify those details if you are merely waiting for your turn to speak.
Your Client’s Story Is Not a Legal Brief
Clients do not generally arrive at a lawyer’s office with their lives organized into neat legal categories. They arrive with stories. Sometimes those stories are clear. Sometimes they are complicated. Sometimes they include information they believe is important but that turns out not to be particularly relevant. Other times, they casually mention something they consider insignificant that turns out to be extremely important.
That is one reason listening matters so much.
A client may be nervous, embarrassed, angry, frightened, or simply overwhelmed. They may not know what information matters legally, and I would not expect them to. That is part of my job. My job is not to expect a client to walk through the door already knowing how to present a legal case. My job is to listen carefully enough to understand what they are actually telling me and then determine what matters.
There is also something else that happens when people feel listened to. They become more willing to tell you the truth, including the parts they would prefer to leave out. That matters. A lawyer cannot properly prepare for a problem that the client is afraid to discuss. I would much rather hear difficult information from my client at the beginning than discover it unexpectedly at the worst possible moment.
Courtrooms Reward People Who Pay Attention
My first hung jury as a prosecutor taught me this lesson in a way I have never forgotten. The case involved an aggravated sexual assault of a child, and the experience caused me to examine my approach carefully. Afterward, I reached out to jurors who were willing to speak with me. I wanted to understand what they had heard and how they had processed the case.
What I learned changed my approach to voir dire dramatically. I became much more deliberate about addressing issues that I knew the other side would eventually touch upon. Rather than waiting for those subjects to be introduced by someone else, I learned the value of bringing them into the conversation myself. That experience reinforced something I already knew but had not fully appreciated: listening is not passive. It is a form of preparation.
The courtroom is full of information. Some of it comes from witnesses. Some comes from jurors. Some comes from opposing counsel. Some comes from a judge’s question or a brief change in someone’s expression. None of that information is particularly useful if you are too busy thinking about what you are going to say next. You have to pay attention to what is actually happening, not simply to the version of events you expected to happen.
Listening Can Change Your Mind
This may be the hardest part of listening. If you are genuinely listening, there is always a possibility that you will learn something that changes your position.
That is not a weakness. It is intellectual honesty.
I have always believed strongly in research and in checking sources for bias and slant. The same principle applies to conversations. If I enter every conversation determined to prove that I am right, I am unlikely to learn very much. If I enter willing to listen, I may discover that the situation is more complicated than I initially believed.
That does not mean abandoning judgment. Lawyers still have to analyze information, make decisions, and advocate for their clients. Listening is not the same thing as agreeing. It simply means allowing yourself to fully understand the information before deciding what it means. Sometimes the answer remains exactly what you thought it was. Sometimes it does not. Either way, you are better informed than you were before.
Knowing When to Stop Talking Is a Professional Skill
I have become increasingly convinced that knowing when to stop talking is an underrated skill. This is particularly true in professions where communication is central to the work. More words do not automatically create a stronger argument. Sometimes they simply create more opportunities for confusion.
Good communication is not about saying everything that comes into your head. It is about understanding what needs to be said, saying it clearly, and then paying attention to the response. That sounds simple. It is not always simple in practice.
My career has taken me from prosecution in four Texas counties to private practice involving criminal defense, civil litigation, family law, probate, and trust and estate planning. The legal issues vary considerably, but the basic principle remains remarkably consistent. Before I can determine what someone needs, I have to understand what they are telling me.
That requires listening.
The Best Conversations Are Not Always the Longest Ones
I have never believed that the person who talks the most necessarily has the most to say. Sometimes the most useful conversation is the one where you ask a good question, listen carefully to the answer, ask another question, and resist the temptation to fill every silence.
Silence can be useful. It gives people room to think. It gives you room to think. It can reveal information that would otherwise never surface.
I am still learning, as I suspect most of us should be. I have described myself as a lover of perpetual learning and forever a work in progress, and listening is a large part of that process. You cannot learn much if you have already decided that you know everything.
So I will continue to read, research, ask questions, and listen. And when appropriate, I will probably still tell another attorney that they are talking too much.
I am an attorney, after all. Someone has to keep us honest.