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Saving Good Judgment From the BlackBerry Culture

In counseling their large law firm clients, management consultants frequently exhort firms to embrace responsiveness as the paramount virtue. When doing so they point to extensive research suggesting that major corporate clients dump their law firms for lack of responsiveness more than for any other sin.

High prices and bad results may annoy general counsel, but nothing so enrages them (or so we are told) as the failure to respond instantaneously to any query. In our BlackBerry culture, a day late is, by definition, a dollar short. More and more clients seem to expect a response to an e-mail or a voicemail within an hour. Twenty-four/seven availability is assumed, and many view turning the BlackBerry off, even during religious observances, weddings and funerals, as professional sacrilege.

To the extent that the BlackBerry culture collides with maintaining some semblance of a private life and personal space, the balance almost always skews toward the BlackBerry -- hence, the pejorative sobriquet, "CrackBerry." How many of us in the midst of a family vacation find ourselves skulking off to the restroom in order to secure some quality time with our BlackBerrys? And how many of us -- during any meeting or conversation -- click constantly on incoming messages, providing the matter at hand with what has become known as "continuous partial attention"?

All this wreaks havoc on any notions of work-life balance and should be roundly condemned for that reason alone. But that is not my primary concern here. Rather, I worry that an extreme emphasis on responsiveness jeopardizes a far more important attribute of professional excellence: judgment. Lawyers and law firms need to resist the BlackBerry culture to the extent necessary to ensure that they do not permit their judgment to become impaired as they strive to be responsive.

In the context of the legal profession, good judgment implies an informed and critical discernment that leads to the optimal resolution of the most difficult and complex problems. Few clients spend much time trying to define good judgment, but most know it when they see it, and to see it is to want it. To make the transition from one of many skilled practitioners providing legal services to a uniquely trusted advisor providing counsel in the broadest sense, a lawyer must both develop and apply good judgment. The best and most highly sought after lawyers distinguish themselves by the quality of their judgment more than by their specialized knowledge or legal acumen.

In his essay "Of the Education of Children," Michel de Montaigne argues that the formation of sound judgment should be the ultimate aim of education. Distinguishing between knowledge and judgment, he admits that any schoolchild might be "more learned than I," but asserts that such a prodigy would still be wanting in judgment. To cultivate judgment a student turns to the great philosophers to "imbibe their ways of thinking, not learn their precepts." In a famous passage, Montaigne sums up the process of acquiring judgment with this analogy:

"The bees plunder the flowers here and there, but afterward they make of them honey, which is all theirs; it is no longer thyme or marjoram. Even so with the pieces borrowed from others; he will transform and blend them to make a work that is all his own, to wit, his judgment. His education, work, and study aim only at forming this."

Montaigne's analysis mirrors the traditional view (famously set forth by K.N. Llewellyn in "The Bramble Bush") of what makes for a good legal education: The study of law may begin with the acquisition of a body of knowledge, but it must extend to the development of a mode of thinking. The importance of developing and applying judgment does not end with law school. Lawyers who exhibit good judgment distinguish themselves in both the profession and the market. We sell our advice. Advice that consistently proves prescient and sagacious commands a very high price.

Both the formation and the application of good judgment require time. Deep and careful thought cannot be rushed; full rather than continuous partial attention forms a pre-requisite for the application of good judgment. Similarly, the cultivation of good judgment depends on a time-consuming and never-ending process of self-education. A lawyer who would preserve and hone his or her judgment cannot afford to abandon the serious study of the arts and sciences, society and politics, literature and history. Along with Pierre Charron, the lawyer in search of judgment must affirm that "the true science and study of man is man," and with that affirmation must commit to living a full and rich life beyond the immediate demands of the practice or the BlackBerry. To engage in such study and to live such a life demands time and space.

In his recent biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jean Edward Smith discusses how even in the midst of World War II, Roosevelt refused to allow his judgment to be impaired by a crisis mentality. In order to ensure that he had the time and space to exercise his judgment, he sometimes took to the sea "to refresh and regroup." In a footnote, Smith shares Roosevelt's own reflections on this process:

"I try to get away a couple of times a year on these short trips on salt water," said Roosevelt in his 1941 Jackson Day message to the Democratic faithful. "In Washington the working day of the President averages about fifteen hours. But at sea the radio messages and the occasional pouch of mail reduce official work to not more than two or three hours a day.

"So there is a chance for a bit of sunshine or a wetted line, or a biography or detective story or a nap after lunch. Above all there is the opportunity for thinking things through -- for differentiating between principles and methods, between the really big things of life and those other things of the moment which may seem all-important today and are forgotten in a month." 10 "Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt," 82-83, Samuel I. Rosenman, ed. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950).

President Roosevelt took to sea in order to create the time and space for the cultivation of and the exercise of judgment. He created a physical barrier between himself and the incessant demands for immediate decisions on critical matters. Today's technology defeats such barriers. Some form of a BlackBerry works everywhere. To overcome that curse within a blessing, we need to learn to set our own limits on responsiveness.

To maintain and refresh the faculty of judgment, we must occasionally withdraw from the hurly-burly, taking the time to nurture our intellects by exercising our mental faculties broadly and deeply over a range of issues not encountered in our working lives. Extending Montaigne's analogy, by thus pollinating our minds with a variety of experience and knowledge, we create the conditions necessary for the formation of judgment. Perhaps we can't escape the BlackBerry, but we can follow President Roosevelt's example by turning it off to fish, to read books and to just think.

By cultivating the faculty of judgment, we position ourselves to exercise that judgment on the behalf of our clients. But here again we must resist the BlackBerry culture. The exercise of good judgment also requires time and space. When a client needs a considered opinion -- and it sometimes seems that the need for careful consideration directly correlates with the pressure for an immediate response -- a snap answer is seldom the best answer. Sometimes the best thing one can do is to go off and think hard and long. The process of really thinking a problem through requires significant time in a place without distractions. By definition, such a place cannot exist within the BlackBerry culture. So how can we resist -- or briefly renounce -- the BlackBerry culture in order to best serve our clients while still keeping them happy? For that I have three suggestions:

Show respect. In a world of instantaneous communication, failure to respond offends in large part because it suggests a lack of respect. To demonstrate respect, an immediate response may be required, but an immediate ill-considered answer isn't. Try instead an immediate response to the effect that you understand the importance of the problem and will, therefore, give it the time and attention that it warrants.

Reduce anxiety. The BlackBerry Culture takes the Age of Anxiety to a new level. For a surprising number of clients, every second that elapses from the time he or she hits "send" to the time a response appears in the inbox creates stomach-churning tension. The best way to deal with this is to lay out a response plan. When significant time is required to develop a reasoned and thoughtful response, establish and follow "just checking in" milestones. This will create a framework for and a palpable sense of progress, which in turn will help to keep anxiety at bay.

Explain the importance of good judgment. Take the time to educate your clients about your philosophy regarding the practice of law including how the cultivation and application of judgment forms an integral part of professional excellence. Frankly acknowledge the tension with the BlackBerry culture. Discuss the implications for conveying respect and controlling anxiety.

Of course, however worthwhile this process of forming and applying good judgment may be in theory, the client will judge by results. Having taken the time required for good judgment, the value of that judgment must be made manifest. While substance matters most, presentation is not irrelevant: Make sure that your long-awaited response is coherent, pithy and compelling. In the sense of creating heightened expectations, renouncing the BlackBerry culture only increases the pressure. But at least the pressure for excellence tends to produce something worth having, while succumbing to the pressure for an arbitrarily quick response tends to produce nothing more than BlackBerry mania.

Gregory S. Gallopoulos is the managing partner of Jenner & Block and is a member of the litigation department. He is co-chair of the tax controversy practice and a member of the government contracts and tax practices.