There were a flurry of football games for the past 2 days in Europe in which there were 4 teams from England and a few from Spain. There were some great games and finally three of the eight teams which come from England managed to secure berths in the semi-finals. Let us not dwell on which teams are those teams as not all will be interested in football or soccer as I am. But the relevant to this posting is about team sports which football is one of it.
The legal profession is a team sport. There is the opponent and there is a referee who is the judge. Today I was asked to judge a mooting competition at a local university and as the students whom I judged were first year students we saw eloquency at a passable level but not that great. One of the thing that they lack is team spirit. As they are marked according to their own effort, there were a lack of helping out each other unlike if you go to a real court.
Although I have been in a 'team' of lawyers who try to bring down the other member of the team as that is the only way to go, the need for teamwork within a team cannot be deny. You need to have someone to ensure that you can rely on for informations and feed you opinions while you try to make sure the judge see your side of the arguments.
That is where watching football, either soccer or the American one, or crickets, or whatever your poison, can help you understand the building of a team is no easy task. You have to motivate, delegate and spell out each member's role with enough passion and motivation. One team in yesterday's match nearly lost the advantage the had in their first leg match when the other team equalised in aggregate in the first half. However, their coach managed to bring the best in them for the second half and they won.
Losing a match is another matter for a lawyer to accept as not all case will be the best case you ever handle and there is no such thing as what Keanu Reeves character had experience in Devil's Advocates in which he won all his case, unless like him, you are the son of the devil....
2 comments:
I think helping others on our team, or even coworkers of any kind, is necessary to the team. Helping and teaching others is the mark of a person who is confident in their abilities. Someone who refuses to help, and only tries to bring down others, shows someone with no confidence and a lack of intelligence. I see more of these in my daily life. Finding a good person is not very easy.
I agree Ratty but sometimes you can't choose a colleague and have to make do
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