There’s a saying about law school—”the first year they scare you to death, the second year they work you to death and the third year they bore you to death.” This saying implies that students overcome that first-year fear, but for many lawyers, it never completely goes away. I know because I was one of them.

When I read “Untangling Fear in Lawyering: A Four-Step Journey Toward Powerful Advocacy” by Heidi K. Brown, director of legal writing and professor of law at Brooklyn Law School, it put me in mind of the Roberta Flack song “Killing Me Softly With His Song.”