What Lawyers Can Learn From Writers

Developing the Next Generation of Rainmakers What Lawyers Can Learn from Writers What can lawyers learn from writers? I think there are many things, I want to go over just a few. This past weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I went to the DFW Writers Conference. The actual conference was Saturday and Sunday, but I went to the pre-conference workshops because I wanted to learn as much as was made available. Here is a description of one of the two pre-conference workshops I attended: Donald Maass: Writing 21st Century Fiction Based on his popular book of the same name (September 2012, Writer’s Digest) , New York agent Donald Maass will teach participants the techniques that give multi-year best selling novels their high impact, resulting in both strong stories and beautiful beautiful writing regardless of category. This is an intensive, hands-on workshop for advanced fiction writers. I was struck by several things that I doubt I would see if I attended something similar for lawyers. If you want to become a better lawyer, find a writers conference, pay out of your own pocket and when attending programs, figure out how you can apply what you are learning as a writer to your law practice. I practiced law for 37 years developing a national construction law practice representing some of the top highway and transportation construction contractors in the US.