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Psychology for Lawyers |
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| Winner of the 2012 Wayne R. LaFave Award for Excellence in Faculty Scholarship. |
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Lawyers who can harness the insights of psychology will be more effective interviewers and counselors, engage in more successful negotiations, conduct more efficient and useful discovery, more effectively persuade judges and others through their written words, better identify and avoid ethical problems, and even be more productive and happier. Psychology for Lawyers introduces practicing lawyers and law students to some of the key insights offered by the field of psychology. The first part of the book offers a crash course in those aspects of psychology that will be most useful to practicing attorneys, including issues such as perception, memory, judgment, decision making, emotion, influence, communication, and the psychology of justice. The second part applies the insights of research to tasks that lawyers face on a regular basis, including interviewing, negotiating, counseling, and conducting discovery. In addition, the book offers practical suggestions for improving your practice -- suggestions that are grounded in the science of psychology. In short, by learning more about psychology and how to apply it, lawyers will be more effective, more successful, more ethical, and even happier.
Comprehensive in discussion, this guide discusses aspects of social and cognitive psychology that are most relevant to lawyering: perception, memory, judgment, decision making, emotion, influence, communication and the psychology of justice. The authors include clear writing drawing on lots of current and interesting examples, chapter summaries, and extensive endnotes and helpful bibliographies for each chapter for those readers desiring more depth on particular issues.
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Psychology for Lawyers is an impressive accomplishment. It covers nearly every aspect of lawyering that involves human psychology -- from how we make judgments, to how we interact with others (clients, witnesses, lawyers, judges, juries), to what it means to be persuasive. It is as deep as it is broad, offering thoughtful analysis and memorable examples from the annals of law practice. The book is essential reading for clinical law teachers and our students: it provides a key lens through which to view the practice of law. It is also essential reading for criminal lawyers: the discussion of perception, memory, bias, emotion and decision making, and persuasion could not be more relevant to criminal defense.
Abbe Smith
Professor of Law
Director, Criminal Defense & Prisoner Advocacy Clinic Co-Director, E. Barrett Prettyman Fellowship Program
Georgetown University Law Center
PSYCHOLOGY FOR LAWYERS will change your perspective on the entire practice of law. The human side of lawyering has too long been neglected. Now, Robbennolt and Sternlight give you the best research on how people think, remember, communicate, and make decisions. Then, they show you how to put that research to work in every aspect of your law practice, from interviewing and counseling clients, to writing briefs, to negotiating deals, and even developing new business. After reading this book, your approach to the practice of law will forever be changed and improved.
Dennis P. Stolle, JD, Ph.D.
Partner, Barnes & Thornburg LLP
President, ThemeVision LLC
Consistent with growing trends in the use of evidence-based practices in the health professions, Robbennolt and Sternlight take well-established scientific principles in cognitive and social psychology and apply them to the day-to-day tasks in which attorneys engage. The authors use their expertise in both law and the science of psychology to select principles that are both well-established in psychology and of particular relevance to the work of the intended audience. They focus on aspects of the practice of law that have not garnered the attention of psychologists who have contributed to the trial advocacy literature. Law students and practicing attorneys will learn about memory, emotion, judgment, decision-making, social influence and other phenomena and how to use this information in developing or maintaining a successful practice. Psychology-law graduate students and experienced researchers will gain insights into legal practice that have not been a primary focus of research and will be exposed to new ideas for research programs. Congratulations to the authors for recognizing the need to go beyond personal experience and draw upon the science to guide attorneys in their practice and researchers in their quests for interesting and important research questions.
Brian Cutler, Ph.D.
Professor and Associate Dean
Faculty of Social Science & Humanities
University of Ontario Institute of Technology
"Psychology for Lawyers pulls together the latest research from various strands of psychology, decision-making, and behavioral economics in an accessible and easy to understand way for law students and practitioners alike. Interwoven with the theory and experimental results are helpful real life stories taken from law, politics, and current events. These stories make the theory come to life. Robbennolt and Sternlight do an excellent job making the research relevant to law students and practitioners. The organization of the references in the back of the book will also help me in my own writing and research. This is an excellent book for anyone working in negotiation, dispute resolution, or conflict management."
Robert C. Bordone
Director, Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program
Harvard Law School
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