White Shoe Lawyer and Emotional Intelligence

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE & THE LAW and the White Shoe Lawyer

Not considered too highly in "the law" or by most lawyers, emotions are nevertheless present in a law firm, and in the courtroom, as they are everywhere else. Emotional Intelligence is particularly needed in working juries. As has been said, "all it takes to hang a jury is two beautiful women or two alcoholics."

Juries also are known not to like "arrogant" attorneys.

Well, today we find on the blog "Law and More: Deconstructing What Happens in Law," an article entitled, "White Shoe in Era of Everyman." We learn that Time has named US, "everyman" the Man of the Year, and that a "white shoe" lawyer originally referred to the "socially ambitious and socially smug" gentlemen (no women in law back then, folks) who were the uppercrust at the Ivy League colleges in the 40s and early 50s.

According to Fred Shapiro, librarian at Yale Law School,

"The term 'white shoe' appears to have originated at Ivy League colleges. The Harvard Crimson, May 9, 1949, refers to a film shown by the Harvard Film Society as doing 'a roaring white-shoe trade' at the box office. . . . An article in Esquire, Sept. 1953, explained that at Yale students were pigeonholed as White Shoe, Brown Shoe, or Black Shoe: 'White Shoe applies primarily to the socially ambitious and socially smug types.' Traditionally white shoes had been prominent in upper-class casual fashion.

In another time, one might say the white shoes were the upper class, or the elite.

This to me is a better explanation, written by a blog commentator: "Ah, 'white shoe' -- we always heard back in the early '80s that the term came from the fact that white bucks were the traditional summer shoes worn by arch-WASP lawyers with their seersucker suits in the days before air-conditioning in New York, Boston and Philadephia firms."

RAY GARRETT JR.

Let me add Chicago to that, and personal anecdote. My father went off to work in the Loop every day in those white shoes and a seersucker suit (and a HAT) even apres A/C. He went to Yale, then Harvard Law school in the late 40s, was a senior partner in a major Chicago law firm, and eventually became Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) - Ray Garrett, Jr. (See Ray Garrett Jr. Corporate and Securities Law Institute, Northwestern School of Law.)

In fact in this photo, which I think was on the cover of Forbes magazine, he has on that seesucker suit, and the white bucks always accompanied it. Until Labor Day.

Blogger, Jane Genova, admits to a bias (she fought her way "in" and then scrambled back out), but she feels that white shoe law firms are missing the boat in recruiting in only Ivy League schools. "Can a hustler with high social/emotional intelligence from a third-tier law school bring in more business, win more cases, get superior results for clients?" she asks. And "of course," she answers herself.

Whoa there. Always? Of course NOT. Only? No. Sometimes? Sure, why not, all thing's being equal? And here's why.

Pertinent to emotional intelligence: It's been said that IQ is what gets you through school, but EQ is what gets you through life. The true "rainmaker" is a maverick, charismatic breed that can't really be pigeonholed. Often brilliant in the law, of course (note that "school" comes before "life"), but there has to be something else, because not all brilliant graduates from Harvard or Stanford are rainmakers. Emotional intelligence subsumes such things as "charisma" and "leadership." My dad had both, and rainmaker he was; his smile lit up a room, his laugh made him the best audience a person could have, and whenever he walked through the law firm the summer I worked there, he was surrounded by a coterie of young associates satelliting around him, wanting to be ... well, led.

Yes, despite the obfuscation of some business consultants and coaches, I maintain that the sine qua non of the leader is that people want to follow him or her. And "want to" is about feeling, not thinking.

I coach leadership, I study it, I had a great role model. Yes, I tried to figure out why Dad had what he had, got what he got and where he got, and it breaks down to many of the emotional intelligence components I teach. However, he was also an exceptional lawyer. But remember, it's not about getting people to follow you, it's about getting them to WANT to follow you.

Now, back to our blogger.

JURIES DON'T LIKE POMPOUS and POMPOUS IS NOT EQ

"When I interviewed the jury in the Rhode Island lead paint trial," writes Ms. Genova, they used words like 'pompous' to describe certain legal players in the trial who screamed white shoe branding. The jurors praised Everyman attorney John Tarantino, defense attorney for ARCO and a local boy. It was Tarantino and only Tarantino who got his client acquitted by that jury. The other three defendants were convicted. This should make all law firms consider, just consider, that maybe all the attributes of the white shoe have become liabilities not the crown jewels of the brand. "

Well, only if the white shoe lawyer happens to be pompous as well, or if that quality is built into your definition of "white shoe lawyer."

OK, she's made her point, and I'll make mine: white shoe, brown shoe, black, or everyman, emotional intelligence can make the crucial difference in one's success in life and at work.

Why debate whether a white shoe or third-tier hustler can win clients and cases for law firms when obviously both are capable of it ... IF they have emotional intelligence.

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