Watering the right-brain
In law school, lawyers-to-be are taught to think rationally, to analyze issues, to brief cases, to present cases logically. We are taught to live and to practice law almost exclusively with the "left brain" functions (logical, analytical, sequential, objective), and the "right brain" functions (intuitive, subjective, creative) wither and die for many of us. Juries are not won over by logic; they are won over by emotion. We need to nurture the "right brain" and we need to apply it in our cases and our presentations to the jury. Juries do not like "lawyers" - they need to see us as real people, and they need to see our clients as real people and hear our client's story if they are going to help our clients.
In the past, I've been an amateur artist and musician, and those qualities fell by the wayside as I buried myself in the practice of law. One thing that I took away from the TLC is a renewed love for art and the ability to create it. I believe that singing and writing music, painting, and reading and writing poetry allows us to fully live, and ultimately makes us better advocates in the courtroom.
