Levine on Leadership

In this month's Law Practice Today,  Stuart Levine issues a call to lawyer leadership, outlines a path to leadership competencies, and invokes the work of Meg Wheatley and David Whyte to realize his vision to engage lawyers to transform our culture into a more caring world. 

Stuart's call for leadership by lawyers is challenging:

"What is the leadership lawyers can provide? What resource lawyers can be in a time of national tragedy, perhaps even national shame? How can we assert ourselves in a way that fosters thoughtful discussion of issues and concerns? How can we engender a spirit of resolve, resolution and useful action? How can we be a stalwart resource for people close to us? How can we be a symbol, a beacon of hope in a darkened landscape?"

Here's a quote from his article, which is as much a manifesto as a call to action:

"I believe that lawyers can dust off the mantles of leadership we have always worn. I believe that beneath the Am Law 100 measurement of size of firm and profits per partner lie large hearts and deep souls yearning to contribute. I have held a vision that embedded in the 1,000,000 lawyers in the United States is a power and presence that has the ability to transform the culture we live in from consumption to caring, from adversary to dialogue, from accumulation to empowerment and enlightenment. It’s simply a matter of allowing what’s already there to come through. It begins with a courageous conversation that each one of us might have with themselves. It’s a conversation that asks you to be open, vulnerable, truthful, compassionate, humble and thoughtful. The conversation would be about how we can free the intellectual, leadership and spiritual energy trapped in an adversary system whose primary beneficiary is often the lawyer. How can we get beyond the legal cultural imperative of action in the name of “good Lawyering” to action in the name of good “Humaning.” I believe that when we do that we’ll find people are more aligned than different. "

Thanks, Stuart, for engaging us in these courageous conversations.  I wish we had more voices raising these questions and challenging our privileged profession.

Read the article here.