the Zealous

Enter Morris Grant. The most lethal lawyer in New York.
Bradley Cooper playing Eddie Mora in Limitless (2011)

Do you realize the kind of flesh-eating lawyers this guy is going to have?
Denis Leary as detective Michael McCann in The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)

I got great lawyers for cops so dress warm
Charges don't stick to dude, he's Teflon.
Jay Z, The Ruler's Back (2001)

Here’s to the writing lawyer – to all you lawyers out there who blog, tweet and publish.

Most lawyers don't bother to write. They just do their jobs or bill their hours. You, however, take an interest in a topic, research it exhaustively, and provide valuable scholarship on that topic. You make yourself an expert, and in doing so, make a valuable addition to the collective knowledge of our trade. Remarkably, you share this work publicly and for free, on firm blogs, discussion forums, or journals.

In short, you elevate yourself and your profession. You are exactly the kind of lawyer we're looking for.

Experts are experts first and competitors second. Experts share knowledge all the time if they are truly experts.

Take software engineers - they are paid or valued by the hour, exercise technical judgment on a daily basis, words are their tool, and they, and their clients and employers, are extreme competitors. Just like us. And yet they freely share tremendously valuable work in open source communities, and always with robust management encouragement.

Why? Because collaboration produces better code.

Be open and willing to put it out there and defend it, and then learn in the process. You'll be a better lawyer by defending your work. And then you'll be making better law.