I
started listening to the video thinking that Justice Sotomayor was going to
talk about communication –and so a couple of minutes in had to come back to the
question and find out what we were supposed to be doing. What’s funny is that
from the very beginning of the video, I was remarking to myself what an
excellent forum for good communication it was, and how good Justice Sotomayor
was at communicating.
At
first, as I usually do (and perhaps everyone does?) I found myself looking at
her in the beginning to get an assessment of “who she was” –especially after
Dean K missaid her name. She was smiling the whole time –so I thought, she’s
cool. Not stuck up. Not full of herself.
Then, I
was confused about why Dean K was being so meticulous about the format for
answering questions –until I realized –it wasn’t a lecture! I have to say, for
the first time in law school, I have begun to be that kid that sits in the back
of the class slouched in my seat and looking pissed off. Professor V –please give me the “academic freedom” to speak my mind about this –as Justice
Sotomayor said, I hope you can realize that I am coming from a good place and
not just being pissy. Because the Orientation we had for this externship was
kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back as far as lectures go for me.
I think
most of my incoming class agreed that our 1L Orientation was a bit of a
disaster. I appreciate that the administration is trying to break the
stereotype “Look to your left. Look to your right. One of you is not going to
be here when you graduate,” but I think they fell short of the mark, and
perhaps in a worse way, by the alternative they proposed: “Look to your left.
Look to your right. These people are going to be your colleagues for the rest
of your life.” Sometime around then we also got a lecture where the main
takeaway was to be nice to each other, because we might be relying on each
other for jobs in the future. Another told us that every single thing we
did, starting
from that moment, was going to go into the registry of our peers and might come
up later to haunt us. We then broke into small groups, and I was relieved to
have a young woman lawyer as our facilitator –thought I might be able to better
identify with her. That was until she told a story about how one of her former
co-students had come in to interview with someone at her firm, and she told the
interviewer that he had shown up a couple of times hung over to class. Now, I
am not going to taut the merits of showing up to class hung over (I honestly
don’t think I ever did this year –though I’m not saying that I wouldn’t. Its
only human-life, and law school, are rough.) but these lectures back to back
with each other kind of set up an early environment of paranoia amongst our
class. On the last day of orientation, I was hanging out with a group of new
friends I had made, and one of them said “I hope we can still hang out after
orientation, because I like you guys, and I still want to be friends with you.” She was quite
embarrassed and meant this in all seriousness-we were all nervous we might be
hanging out with each other for the wrong reasons.
Though
I get and appreciate their intentions, I feel like the orientation speakers set
up our law school experience to be like a giant networking event –where we
should just be nice to each other because we might need each other for a job
later. I mean, come on, speaking to a group of adults and reminding us to be
nice to each other –as a topic to a lecture? It made me, and a lot of us, kind
of terrified. What were we getting ourselves into if people from the other side
were reminding us that we had to be nice? I mean, isn’t that just something you
learn as part of being a decent human being? What was law school going to do to
us?
But now
on to the relevant part: I think a huge part of the problem was the lecture
format itself. I noticed this soon after orientation as I met with countless
2Ls and 3Ls, peer and professional mentors, lawyers at networking events and
lectures. In fact, more experienced people in the legal field somewhat seemed to
be throwing themselves at me to offer me their advice as I embarked on my
journey. Which seemed nice enough –except when I actually listened to the
advice most of them were giving me. It was some variation on the “Are you
freaking out yet? Don’t worry –don’t freak out. You will be fine. Law school is
going to kill you, make you hate yourself, make you feel like a worse person,
as is being a lawyer, but (for some obscure unknown reason) you will be ok.” I
wasn’t freaking out just yet in my first few months of law school –but in the
minutes after I spoke to anyone with any experience, I started to freak out a
little bit or at least feel like I should be.
This is
what’s wrong with lectures. Its people coming at you with their experience and
not necessarily meeting you where you are. This aspect of law school and legal
culture has made me really sad. I can’t help but wonder if people were so ready
with their advice because they had struggled so much but were kind of alone in
it. The competitive aspect of law culture, though I think it is relatively tame here, makes us kind of isolated from our peers. Lets be honest –during law
school we kind of only think about law school. It was sort of the same in
undergrad –yet I never remember feeling hesitant to discuss problems I was
having academically, or especially being disappointed with a grade. Here, I
feel like I have to go through these struggles on my own because its kind of
taboo to talk about it to my peers. We all have to be in mystery with how each
other are doing. I lost my scholarship and it’s all I can think about these
days (see my blog) but I don’t know if its even appropriate for me to talk
about it with you guys. And the other scholars aren’t even able to tell me
anyone else who has lost it that I could talk to because its that secretive among
the community!
So for me, it tends to feel like for people who lecture us or offer us advice,
it is more of a self-confessional for them than it is a carefully considered
way to reach us and help us. A moment in the spotlight, where they are not
alone, and they can make their struggles into something worthwhile by advising
us from the other side. The sad thing, I think, it that many of them fail at
inspiring us and just terrify us or alienate us. And so to me that means –they
didn’t really solve their problems –they are still going on and I am scared of
them.
But if
you’re going to lecture, there are some skills that can make your audience
receptive to your message. Instead of really taking to heart what the Judge who
lectured us during Orientation for this externship said, I really thought about
why I was feeling so angry. First, he didn’t do anything to meet us where we
were. We had just finished our exams the day before. Many of us had just ended
perhaps the most difficult year of our lives. We would be inhuman if we hadn’t
celebrated with our friends that night. If he really wanted to get us on board,
he would have acknowledged the fact that we were still there that morning,
ready and willing to listen to him. Instead, he started off by singling out
some of the men in the audience and making them take off their hats. I can’t
think of something that could alienate the audience more –not only did it
embarrass them and make the rest of us identify with them in sympathy, but it
made some members of the audience undoubtedly uncomfortable for the entire
lecture. Let’s be honest –some people put on a hat when they didn’t have time
to shower or do their hair in the morning. And once the hat’s on, even if they
did shower, their hair is kind of messed up. We were meeting for an orientation
–not for an interview with a downtown firm. Any events at the law school that
have a dress code tell us so –if not it is appropriate to dress like a student.
Second
of all, his introduction exemplified the theme of his lecture: talking down on
us. Telling us that we were kids and we better shape up if we expected to do
well this summer. I, as a somewhat older student, was deeply offended. Before I
came to law school I had a job for 6 years. I know how to be a responsible
adult and so at the very least, his lecture was wasting my time. I thought
perhaps he had in mind that his audience was filled with young people that had
gone right from college to law school. But then I started thinking of my peers
who I knew and who were straight out of college. In a way, their closeness to
academia made them more serious students than I was. I can really only think of
a few students who might have not been ridiculously serious about their studies
and their summer jobs. I mean, think about your audience. We’re law students
–and by that I don’t mean to suggest the type of arrogance he suggested we all
have. I mean to suggest the “type A” personalities we all hear about all the
time. Law students are an incredibly motivated and hard working group of
people. And I have never been a fan of addressing a whole group of people to
correct a problem only a few people have. The people who are not serious about
law school or their summer jobs wont be serious whether they get a lecture
about it or not. There will always be people like that. But the rest of us, the
majority, were waiting for him to speak to us, and instead he alienated us all.
Even if
he was hell bent on reaching those students in the audience that wouldn’t be
serious about their summer jobs, it was an absolutely ineffective method to
connect with them and make them receptive to his message. I was so offended by
him I thought of texting others in the audience so that I could stop frowning.
But I thought maybe I was being too critical. After the lecture was over,
however, I found that the students I talked to had felt exactly the same way.
Here was someone standing in front of us, perhaps talking about his personal
struggles in the legal profession, but mostly telling us how right he was and
how wrong we were. This is the quintessential format for NOT getting people to
listen to you.
That’s
why I was so pleasantly surprised at the format of the video with Justice
Sotomayor. Some communication genius must have thought of the idea that to
reach a bunch of young kids and to inspire them to follow the lead of the
Justice the best format was probably not to have her go up and lecture at them
–literally talk down at them, and spout off some abstract principles for what
it would take to succeed. She just got up there, smiling, put her arm on the
podium, looking really relaxed and comfortable and at home, and let them ask
her questions. But first, she thanked them wholeheartedly and told a story to show how she was
extremely grateful to be there with them. This was just one example of a number
of times where she was subtly infusing them with value. If I was in the
audience, I would have asked myself why would someone so high up be so visibly
touched to come and speak with me?
This is
perhaps the best aspect of her expertise at communication –her demonstrating
the student’s value (an extremely hard task with young people) didn’t seem
trite or not genuine –and it wasn’t, because it was subtle, not contrived, and
a demonstration of her real feelings. And so with little tactics like that she
was accomplishing exactly what the purpose of the event was –in a very creative
way. Another way she did this was by really listening and being attentive to
student’s questions. I was talking to someone once who was complaining about
the way another person frequently gave her advice. This was alarming to me
because I felt that I was always giving advice to her too! But she explained
the difference –somehow (she said, by the way you’re looking at me right now!)
she could tell from my facial expression and body language that I was really
listening to her before I gave her advice. She didn’t get the same feeling from
the other person and felt that that person was just giving her sort of
manufactured “one size fits all” advice. I think you can really see this
demonstrated in Justice Sotomayor’s style. I used myexample because I don’t
know what about a person’s facial expression or body language signifies that
they are really listening –but I think we know it when we see it. She also took
a notable amount of time to think after each question and thoroughly and
thoughtfully answer each of them. She didn’t falter in this even at the end
–each student’s question was treated with the same seriousness as the others.
Her
style was different, though no less honest (perhaps more honest) than it would
have been if she was speaking to, say, a room of politicians. She had read and
responded to her audience. She was talking like a young person, and using words
and experiences that the audience might be able to identify with (lots of
stories about when she was young.) She was speaking to herself –she had channeled how she felt
when she was a member of the audience. She used a good mix of complicated, serious
discussion and more light hearted moments to get the students on board and
engage them. When a student asked her what motivated her to come as far as she
had, she he didn’t use some lofty explanation of her motives –which I’m sure
she could if she was in a different audience. She said she’s the most stubborn
person they would ever meet and used stories from her childhood that they could
relate to.
Lastly,
she infused an emotional and personal element into some of her answers –though
not too much, and not too little. This allows her audience to emotionally
identify with her and perhaps is the most effective way of making an impact.
One meaningful moment was when she asked the students “Will you ever feel a
part of them if you’re that different?” She went on to tell how she had
struggled with this her whole life and was still struggling –but that her
experience on the Supreme Court was helping her become at peace with being
different. “Its ok,” she said powerfully, and then paused to let that message really
sink in. Of note is that she didn’t try to make this some overzealous quote
about being different. She just told them what we all want to hear at various
points in our life –its ok.
Perhaps
Justice Sotomayor’s communication skills are so good because they come from her
worldview, which is so focused on communicating well with others. She says the
law is clear but human behavior is not. So she makes sure to ask herself if she
clearly understands each side before she begins. Her advice on how to deal with
people: if you’re passionate about your own views, but sensitive to the other
person’s views, you can improve your relationship with them. At the SC, she
assumes that everyone on the court is coming from a good place. She wants her
legacy to be that she understands people, and respects law. Her view is rule of
law is at the foundation of our society.
I
really enjoyed Justice Sotomayor’s discussion –enough that I took notes from it
(and wrote a ridiculously long post.) Hearing about her worldview in the
context of short stories about her personal life, her struggles, and other very
humanizing subjects made it hit home and have a greater effect on me than
perhaps any other motivational lecture I’ve heard so far in law school. (CO
Justice Rice was also really good, for the record, for a lot of the same
reasons as Justice Sotomayor.)
