How to Build Your Communication Skills As a Lawyer

Communication skills are easily among the most crucial investments you can make in your legal career. Effective communication helps you to build trust with your clients and colleagues, advocate for your clients, and be more persuasive with judges and juries. You may even find that refining your communication skills goes a long way toward positive negotiations with opposing counsels. While you might know that you need to improve how you communicate with others, that doesn’t mean you know how. The following tips may prove helpful:

Master the Foundations of Communication

Before you attempt to master complex communication techniques like oral advocacy, work on mastering the foundations, which can make it easier to upskill in the future. When you work at a law firm like Blakeley Law Firm – Fort Lauderdale car accident lawyers, you have opportunities to do this every day.

Start by ensuring all forms of communication are precise and clear, which means avoiding unnecessary jargon and using plain and direct language unless something calls for technical terminology. Precise and clear communication is invaluable for clients who aren’t in the legal industry. Next, practice active listening. This involves truly hearing your client or colleagues before responding. It also helps to summarize their points back to them to confirm understanding.

Improve Your Written Communication

It’s not just your oral communication skills in the legal field that can need some refinement. Your written communication skills may also need to be fine-tuned. Kickstart your improvements by writing concise, persuasive, and organized documents, such as memos, contracts, and motions.

Once you’ve written something, edit it for brevity. This means writing with clarity and ensuring every word serves a purpose. Finally, be aware of your audience. Write for the person who would be reading it, which can sometimes mean using less technical jargon if you’re writing something for a client.

Refine Your Oral Skills

You might think your oral communication skills are more than satisfactory, but there’s always room for improvement. Start by viewing your courtroom presence with a critical eye. Use your volume to command attention, work on more eye contact, and consider your posture. If you need to practice persuasive delivery, join an organization like Toastmasters, which has helped many businesspeople and international speakers.

Work On Interpersonal Skills

Lawyers work closely with their clients to deliver the outcomes they’re hoping for. However, their experience with you and their willingness to refer you to other people can greatly depend on how you communicate with them. If you don’t think your interpersonal skills are quite on the level they need to be, now is an excellent time to work on them.

First, work on your empathy. Clients don’t always understand legal terminology, so simplify it without sounding condescending. As negotiations are also a significant part of your job when working with your clients, refine your negotiation skills through active listening, building a good rapport with the opposing side, and being adaptable when circumstances rapidly change.

We aren’t born with good communication skills; we learn them. If you work in the legal field and want to build your skills to do better for your colleagues and clients, take note of these valuable tips above.