Non-cognitive skills possessed by successful lawyers? Let’s make a list:

1. Ruthlessness

2. Unscrupulousness

3. Anal retentiveness

4. Petty vindictiveness

5. Shallowness and superficiality (a twofer!)

6. Megalomania (perhaps should be elevated to No.1?)

7. Condescension

8. Sanctimony

9. Hypocrisy

10. Misanthropy

Ten all I have time to do right now. Feel free to add to the list.

But it is good to think that if we only stripped away those pesky cognitive skills, we would soon have a whole new crop of lawyers who epitomize these essential non-cognitive traits without any distractions.

Stuart Koehl

Falls Church, VA