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Bartleby
巴托比专栏
Why you should think like a lawyer
为什么你应该像律师一样思考
The unloved profession has a lot to teach managers.
这个不讨喜的职业可以教给管理者们很多道理。
Lawyers are often seen as the most tedious of professionals.
律师常被视为最乏味的专业人士。
And the most derided (“What do you know when you find a lawyer up to his neck in concrete? Someone ran out of concrete”).
也是最受嘲笑的（“当你发现一个律师被混凝土埋到脖子时，说明什么？说明有人的混凝土用完了。”）
Yet that damning reputation is undeserved: lawyers are in fact role models.
然而，这种负面的名声是不公平的：律师实际上是榜样。
The method and meticulousness entrenched in the legal style of thought has something to teach other knowledge workers and their managers.
法律思维方式中根深蒂固的条理性和细致性能教给其他知识工作者及其管理者一些道理。
In “One L”, a book about his first year at Harvard Law School, Scott Turow describes the slow, arduous progress of going over his first case as “stirring concrete with his eyelashes”.
在《法学院一年级新生》一书中，斯科特·图罗描述了他在哈佛法学院第一年的经历，他将自己首次处理案件的缓慢而艰难的过程描述为“用睫毛搅拌混凝土”。
But legal education is not about specific cases or statutes.
但是法学教育并非关于某一个案件或法规。
It is, as Mr Turow later understands, about processing a mountain of information and exercising judgment.
而是关于如何处理堆积如山的信息并运用判断力（图罗后来才明白）。
It teaches how to infer rules from patterns, use analogies, anticipate what might happen next, accept ambiguity and be ready to question everything.
它教导人们如何从模式中推断出规律，如何进行类推，如何预测接下来可能发生的事情，如何接受模糊性，以及如何准备好质疑一切。
The sober way of going about this is by sticking to the facts.
清醒地做到这些的方式就是实事求是。
What matters is what you can prove.
重要的是你能证明什么。
In her final year of law school, this guest Bartleby gave her hairdresser of many years advice on whether another client’s behaviour amounted to breach of contract.
笔者在法学院的最后一年给她多年的理发师提供了建议，帮助她判断另一位客户的行为是否构成违约。
It did not—the law did not offer an effective remedy for that problem.
答案是不构成，法律没有为那个问题提供有效的补救措施。
This left the salon owner grateful not to be spending resources on a lost cause.
这让理发店的老板很感激，因为她不必在一个注定失败的事情上浪费资源了。
(She proceeded to remunerate your columnist with a free haircut.)
（然后她用一次免费理发给笔者付了酬劳。）
In a world of business that is increasingly dominated by amorphous, ever-changing markets, the interaction might sound familiar to managers, and many of their subordinates.
在一个越来越被无定形的、不断变化的市场所主导的商业世界里，管理者和他们的许多下属可能对这种互动感觉很熟悉。
White-collar workers, after all, also need to remain rational in the face of unexpected situations and undeterred by initial incomprehension.
毕竟白领工作者也需要在面对突发状况时保持理性，在刚开始一头雾水的情况下不气馁。
No lawyer knows every law, but by the time their training is over they are calm in the face of the unknown and know how and where to look anything up.
没有哪个律师知道所有法律，但是当他们受训结束时，他们会在面对未知时保持冷静，并且知道如何以及在哪里查找信息。
Likewise, anyone running a company will never have all the answers.
同样地，任何经营公司的人都不会知道所有的答案。
What they need is equanimity and a method of quickly arriving at conclusions that are likelier than not to be the correct ones.
他们需要的是冷静和一种能够快速得出大概率是正确结论的方法。
Managers also have something to learn from the adversarial legal system, central to common-law jurisdictions like America’s and Britain’s, where advocates represent their parties before an impartial arbiter (usually a judge and a jury).
管理者也能从对抗性司法制度中学到一些东西，这种制度是美国和英国等普通法司法审判的核心，在这种司法中，辩护律师在中立的裁决者（通常是法官和陪审团）面前代表他们的当事人。
In preparing for trial, lawyers attempt to identify and rehearse both sides of litigation.
在为审判做准备时，律师试图确定并预演诉讼的双方。
By putting themselves in their opponents’ shoes they are forced to engage with a line of reasoning with which they may disagree.
通过设身处地地站在对手的立场上，他们必须去理解一种他们可能不同意的推理思路。
In so far as managing employees is, like arguing a case before a court, about persuasion, managers would be wise to adopt some of the same tactics.
就像在法庭上辩论案件一样，管理员工是关于说服他人的，就这方面而言，管理者明智的做法是采用一些和出庭辩论相同的策略。
That means avoiding emotional reactions (lawyers may try to appeal to jurors’ feelings but they never let their own get in the way).
这意味着要避免情绪化的反应（律师可能会试图唤起陪审员的情感，但他们自己绝不会让情绪妨碍工作）。
It also means considering the strongest criticism of their own reasoning.
这也意味着要考虑到对他们自己推理的最强烈的批评。
This not only makes their own arguments bulletproof but is liable to look fair in the eyes of employees and fellow managers.
这不仅使他们自己的论点无懈可击，而且在员工和其他管理者眼中也会显得公平。
(Plus, a friendly but thorough performance review is essentially a mock cross-examination of your witnesses.)
（另外，一次友好但彻底的绩效审查本质上就是对你的证人的模拟盘问。）
Law, after all, is a way of dealing with social stress.
毕竟，法律是一种处理社会压力的方式。
If attorneys are trained for one thing, it is on how to maintain focus, precision and a clear strategic plan in the midst of a crisis.
如果说律师们受过某一方面的训练，那就是如何在危机中保持专注、精确和清晰的战略计划。
When a team feels a wrong should be redressed, a manager should look for the rule that governs the conduct in question, how that rule was applied in the past and act in a way that seems morally defensible.
当团队认为错误应该得到纠正时，管理者应该寻找管理相关行为的规定，该规定过去是如何应用的，并以一种在道德上站得住脚的方式行事。
If the crisis is external, a manager should also follow precedent, which is the basis of common law and much of what lawyers do in court.
如果危机是外部的，管理者也应该遵循先例，这是普通法的基础，也是律师在法庭上的大部分工作。
The purposefulness and heady resolve that characterise most lawyers are attributes that executives, too, should cultivate.
大多数律师所特有的目标性和强烈决心也是高管们应该培养的特质。
There is no room for passivity when something goes wrong, only for action.
出现问题时，没有被动等待的余地，只有采取行动。
Perhaps the most valuable lesson from lawyers is both the most obvious and the most scorned.
或许从律师那里学到的最有价值的教训，既是最明显的，也是最被人轻视的。
The antidote to work anxiety is not taking your mind off work with meditation or Netflix.
应对工作焦虑的方法，不是通过冥想或看网飞剧集来转移注意力。
It is disciplined preparation.
而是自律的准备。
There are rewards in leaving no stone unturned.
把能做的都做了，就会有回报。
By putting in the hours, even if these are not billable, managers can ensure they are as ready as they can be for the uncertainties that lie ahead.
通过投入时间，即使这些时间无法计费，管理者也可以确保他们尽可能地为未来的不确定性做好了准备。
As an added bonus, hard graft wins them the respect of colleagues and subordinates.
作为额外的奖励，辛勤的努力为他们赢得了同事和下属的尊重。
Your columnist ended up not pursuing a career in law.
笔者最终没有从事法律职业。
But she never regretted her training as a lawyer—and not just because of the free haircut.
但是她从未后悔过自己接受了律师的训练，这不仅仅是因为那次免费的理发。
