Personal Reflection. Why good judgment comes first

• Author: John Adair
• Pages: 357-363

357

R PERSONAL REFLECTION | INTER 2016

Why g jumen cmes irs

JOHN ADAIR

I

recently interviewed young lawyers for a position with our

rm. I asked all the applicants what quality they believe is the most

important for a successful litigator. It is, admittedly, a bit of an unfair

question, both because there probably is no “most” important quality

and because it is so dicult for anyone who has not spent any consider-

able amount of time doing this job to answer that question. However,

posing the question caused me to revisit my own thoughts on the subject.

I have long heard my father say that judgment is the single-most

important quality for a good litigator. I now believe that I can adopt that

answer based on my own thinking and experience. There are of course

many other options, and no doubt a compelling case can be made for a

number of them. This is not a question that admits of a “right” answer.

But in this space I want to defend my answer by (1) explaining how I got

to it, and what “judgment” means; (2) explaining why, to me, judgment

is so important in the context of today’s litigation landscape; and (3),

considering what, to me, is the critical question that follows from my

answer: whether we can “learn” better judgment. My eort starts with a

podcast about California resident Larry Williams.

WHAT I MEAN BY JUDGMENT

I am probably well behind the times, but I started listening to pod-

casts about 12 months ago, and I’m hooked. The variety and quality of