This post reflects on one of the more demanding titles in the ThinkQbation reading program — a book that proved unexpectedly relevant to both the physical toll of legal practice and the habits of mind that separate good litigators from great ones. Two passages in particular left a lasting impression: one on how a pulmonary embolism can develop silently before turning serious, and another on the crucial difference between passively "looking" and actively "observing." The reflection closes with a comparison of legal education in Korea and the United States, and where each falls short.
Books Read Together
The Genome Odyssey by Ashley, Euan Angus
Of all the books selected for the ThinkQbation
program, this was the one I found most difficult. Before joining the program,
Dr. Shin had shared a reading list that included several health-related titles,
and at the time I had little interest in that subject and skipped over them.
Looking back, that gap in background knowledge is probably what made this book
feel so much harder than it needed to be. Even so, having now finished it, I
feel it was worthwhile in more ways than one.
Despite the difficulty, I came across several
passages in this book that I found genuinely striking.
Recognizing the Physical Toll of Legal Practice
The book describes how pulmonary embolism often goes unnoticed at first, yet can end in serious consequences. It typically begins with a blood clot that forms in the leg and eventually travels through the bloodstream until, at some point, it reaches a branch of the pulmonary vasculature just narrow enough to match its size. Lodged in place and unable to move further, the clot blocks the vessel entirely. Deprived of blood flow, the surrounding lung tissue is starved of oxygen and nutrients, and as that tissue begins to die, the person experiences sharp chest pain, shortness of breath, or other symptoms of oxygen deprivation
Lately I have noticed a sense of tightness in
my chest and shoulders rather than my upper abdomen, along with some difficulty
breathing, and I cannot help but wonder whether this resembles the symptoms
described above. I suspect the underlying cause is the considerable stress
accumulated over years of legal practice. Within the legal community, it is not
uncommon to come across posts from litigators outside in-house or public-sector
roles describing various health conditions they have developed, and such posts
are often met with replies urging the author to leave the job and rest.
That alone speaks to just how stressful the
practice of law can be. Taking on a heavy caseload means having to see every
matter through to its conclusion regardless of outcome, which is stressful in
its own right; taking on too few cases, on the other hand, means that success
fees depend entirely on winning those few matters, which brings a different but
equally real form of stress. Of the two, I believe the latter tends to weigh
more heavily. When case volume is high, income is more or less assured regardless
of the win rate, and associates can be brought in to help manage the workload.
When case volume is low, however, the firm depends on a handful of matters, and
the pressure to win every one of them is immense — a burden that, in my
observation, often takes a serious toll on the health of the attorneys
involved.
Recently I have noticed a lump at the back of
my head, along with the tightness in my chest and shoulders and the breathing
difficulty mentioned earlier — signs that my body is clearly not in a normal
state. I know I need rest, but circumstances do not allow it, so instead I have
recently been focusing my energy on investing. If those investments succeed, I
hope to scale back the intensity of my practice, and I hope that day comes
soon, before my health deteriorates any further.
Looking versus Observing: A Skill Every Litigator Needs
The book repeatedly emphasizes that Holmes
drew a sharp distinction between the passive act of "looking" and the
active act of "observing." It recounts Holmes explaining that
something caught his attention only because he was looking around with the
specific intent of finding it. In the same spirit, medical schools regularly
instruct students to observe actively rather than passively — noticing, for
instance, that a patient's pulse is slightly slow, and immediately checking for
a murmur that might indicate narrowing of the aorta.
In the course of my own practice, I came to
recognize this same distinction between "looking" and
"observing," and I have since made a point of applying it
deliberately in my work. I believe this is part of why my win rate has been relatively
strong. Clients who want to gauge a lawyer's competence might find it useful to
pay attention to a similar signal: during the initial consultation, notice how
many follow-up questions the attorney asks while you describe your case. A
lawyer who simply listens without asking questions is more likely to handle the
litigation passively as well. By contrast, a lawyer who asks many questions is
actively reconstructing the case as they listen. It is precisely in that
process of reconstructing the narrative while listening that further questions
naturally arise — and it is through that same process that strategies for
improving the odds of success tend to emerge.
Rethinking Legal Education in Korea
According to the book, American medical
schools consistently train students during lectures to observe actively. Korean
law faculties and law schools, however, provide no comparable training. Most
classes are lecture-based, and students tend to approach learning primarily
through memorization. I do not think this is a flaw inherent to the law school
system itself, but rather a legacy of the old bar exam, which was heavily
memorization-driven. It was precisely this concern that led to the introduction
of the law school system, under which clinical legal education and moot court
competitions were established. Yet students who have grown accustomed to
memorization-based learning from elementary school through high school tend to
carry that same preference into law school, making it difficult to shift the
culture even where the system allows for it. Students find memorization-based
study comfortable and tend to regard memorization-heavy exams as more
"fair," which makes it correspondingly difficult to introduce an
American-style approach to legal education.
Reading this book left me somewhat envious of
the American education system. Still, I take some comfort in the fact that
programs like ThinkQbation are creating room for this kind of change to happen,
even if only outside the formal system for now.
