Harrison explains the importance of different types of intelligence for attorneys in a Q&A clip.
He highlights the need for social intelligence in some practice areas and academic intelligence in others.
For commercial litigation, competence is crucial to avoid arguments against your abilities.
Patent and corporate law require competence specific to those fields.
Social intelligence is highly valued in personal injury law, regardless of the law school you attended.
Harrison challenges the notion that success in law requires attending a top law school or working at a big firm.
He questions the desirability of working in a firm where you feel unwanted.
Transcript
Transcript:
So let me just explain it to you. So there are different types of attorneys. Some attorneys need social intelligence, and some need academic intelligence. If you want to be like a commercial litigator, you need to be competent to do that because otherwise, people will make arguments around it.
If you want to be a patent attorney or a corporate attorney, you need to be competent to do these jobs for attorneys that need social intelligence; you have a lot of other practice areas. The big one, of course, is personal injury. So when I see a social intelligence thing other than your ability to come up with very complex arguments and be super bright, you can go to a bottom-of-a-barrel law school, the worst law school there is, and become the most successful personal injury attorney in the country.
It doesn't matter. You just go into a practice area that uses your skills. Everybody thinks they must be a summer associate in a big firm or go to a top law school to practice law successfully is insane. Why would you want to work in a firm? You don't want to be with people that don't want you?
