律SHOW
打造跨境律界极致专业与
这个不受欢迎的职业带给管理者诸多启示。
LAWYERS ARE often seen as the most tedious of professionals. And the most derided ("What do you know when you find a lawyer up to his neck in concrete? Someone ran out of concrete"). Yet that damning reputation is undeserved: lawyers are in fact role models. The method and meticulousness entrenched in the legal style of thought has something to teach other knowledge workers and their managers.
律师常常被视为最乏味的职业，也是最被嘲笑的职业（当你看到一个律师脖子以下都埋在混凝土里时，你知道发生了什么？有人混凝土用完了）。然而，这种糟糕的声誉是不应有的：实际上，律师是模范。法律思维方式中根深蒂固的的方法和一丝不苟的态度对其他知识工作者及管理者有所启示。
In "One L", a book about his first year at Harvard Law School, Scott Turow describes the slow, arduous progress of going over his first case as "stirring concrete with his eyelashes". But legal education is not about specific cases or statutes. It is, as Mr Turow later understands, about processing a mountain of information and exercising judgment. It teaches how to infer rules from patterns, use analogies, anticipate what might happen next, accept ambiguity and be ready to question everything.
斯科特.特罗（Scott Turow）关于他在哈佛法学院第一年的一本书《一年级法学生》，描述了他学习第一个案例时缓慢而艰难的过程，就像"用睫毛搅拌混凝土"。但法律教育并非关于具体案例或法条，正如特罗先生后来所理解的，它是关于处理大量信息和锻炼判断力。它教会如何从模式中推导规则，运用类比，预测接下来可能发生的事情，接受模糊性，并准备好质疑一切。
The sober way of going about this is by sticking to the facts. What matters is what you can prove. In her final year of law school, this guest Bartleby gave her hairdresser of many years advice on whether another client's behaviour amounted to breach of contract. It did not—the law did not offer an effective remedy for that problem. This left the salon owner grateful not to be spending resources on a lost cause.
坚持事实使得律师比常人更冷静，因为重要的是你能证明什么。在法学院的最后一年，就一位客人的行为是否构成违约，巴特比（Bartleby）给她多年的理发师提出建议。然而答案是"不构成违约"，并且法律未能提供有效的补救措施，这让理发店老板庆幸自己没有浪费资源在一个注定失败的律师事业上（理发店老板可以继续为你们的专栏作家巴特比（Bartleby）免费理发）。
In a world of business that is increasingly dominated by amorphous, ever-changing markets, the interaction might sound familiar to managers, and many of their subordinates. White-collar workers, after all, also need to remain rational in the face of unexpected situations and undeterred by initial incomprehension. No lawyer knows every law, but by the time their training is over they are calm in the face of the unknown and know how and where to look anything up. Likewise, anyone running a company will never have all the answers. What they need is equanimity and a method of quickly arriving at conclusions that are likelier than not to be the correct ones.
在一个日益被无定形、不断变化的市场主导的商业世界中，法学生和理发师的互动对管理者来说可能听起来很熟悉，他们的许多下属也是如此。毕竟，白领工人也需要在面对意外情况时保持理性，不被最初的不理解所吓倒。不像律师知道所有的法律，但当他们培训结束时，他们面对未知时会保持冷静，知道如何以及在哪里查找任何东西。同样，任何经营公司的人都永远不可能知道所有答案，他们需要的是平静和快速得出更可能正确结论的方法。
Managers also have something to learn from the adversarial legal system, central to common-law jurisdictions like America's and Britain's, where advocates represent their parties before an impartial arbiter (usually a judge and a jury). In preparing for trial, lawyers attempt to identify and rehearse both sides of litigation. By putting themselves in their opponents' shoes they are forced to engage with a line of reasoning with which they may disagree.
管理者也可以从对抗性法律系统中学到东西，这是美国、英国等普通法系国家的核心，其中律师代表各自的当事人在公正的仲裁者（通常是法官和陪审团）面前陈述案情。在为审判做准备的过程中，律师试图识别并演练诉讼的双方立场。通过站在对手的立场上，他们被迫与他们可能不同意的推理方式进行对话。
In so far as managing employees is, like arguing a case before a court, about persuasion, managers would be wise to adopt some of the same tactics. That means avoiding emotional reactions (lawyers may try to appeal to jurors' feelings but they never let their own get in the way). It also means considering the strongest criticism of their own reasoning. This not only makes their own arguments bulletproof but is liable to look fair in the eyes of employees and fellow managers. (Plus, a friendly but thorough performance review is essentially a mock cross-examination of your witnesses.)
就管理员工而言，如同在法庭上辩论，是关于说服，管理者明智的做法是采用一些相同的策略。这意味着避免情绪化的反应（律师可能会试图打动陪审员的感情，但他们从不让自己的感情受干扰）。这也意味着要考虑对他们自己推理的最强烈批评。这不仅使他们自己的论点无懈可击，而且在员工和其他管理者眼中看起来也很公平（此外，友好但彻底的绩效评估本质上是对你的证人进行模拟交叉盘问）。
Law, after all, is a way of dealing with social stress. If attorneys are trained for one thing, it is on how to maintain focus, precision and a clear strategic plan in the midst of a crisis. When a team feels a wrong should be redressed, a manager should look for the rule that governs the conduct in question, how that rule was applied in the past and act in a way that seems morally defensible. If the crisis is external, a manager should also follow precedent, which is the basis of common law and much of what lawyers do in court. The purposefulness and heady resolve that characterise most lawyers are attributes that executives, too, should cultivate. There is no room for passivity when something goes wrong, only for action.
法律毕竟是一种处理社会压力的方式。如果说律师受到过一种训练，那就是如何在危机中保持专注、精准和明确的战略计划。当团队认为某个错误需要纠正时，管理者应该寻找适用于所讨论行为的规则，该规则过去是如何应用的，并以看似道德上可辩护的方式行事。如果危机来自外部，管理者还应遵循先例，这是普通法的基础，也是律师在法庭上所做的大部分工作。大多数律师所具备的目标感和坚定决心是高管们也应该培养的属性。当出现问题时，没有空间被动，只有行动。
Perhaps the most valuable lesson from lawyers is both the most obvious and the most scorned. The antidote to work anxiety is not taking your mind off work with meditation or Netflix. It is disciplined preparation. There are rewards in leaving no stone unturned. By putting in the hours, even if these are not billable, managers can ensure they are as ready as they can be for the uncertainties that lie ahead. As an added bonus, hard graft wins them the respect of colleagues and subordinates.
或许律师最有价值的教训，既是最明显的，也是最被轻视的。工作焦虑的解药不是用冥想或看Netflix把注意力从工作上转移开，而是有纪律的准备。在不遗余力地翻遍每块石头后，会有回报。即使这些时间无法计费，管理者也可以确保他们为未来的不确定性做好尽可能充分的准备。额外的好处是，辛勤工作赢得了同事和下属的尊重。
"Your columnist ended up not pursuing a career in law. But she never regretted her training as a lawyer—and not just because of the free haircut. " The Economists, Jun 29th 2024, Bartleby
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