Description
Book SynopsisWritten by the leading authority on legal decision making, Professional Judgment for Lawyers integrates empirical legal research, cognitive and social psychology, organizational behavior, legal ethics, and neuroscience to understand and improve decision making by attorneys, clients, judges, arbitrators, mediators, and juries.
Trade Review‘Buy it. Read it. Make better judgments and decisions. … Professional Judgment for Lawyers
can help you understand what is going on, become more self-aware, understand your cognitive limitations, and know how to get help when you need it. … Like all of Kiser's books, Professional Judgment for Lawyers is well written, accessible, and a pleasure to read. … Law schools should offer courses on this subject with this book as the core text. Law firms should conduct in-house seminars and workshops with this book as the guide. Bar associations should offer CLE programs based on Professional Judgment for Lawyers."‘This new book, like Randy Kiser’s others, truly is a must-read. It showcases his unusual and enviable talent for pulling together empirical work from very diverse fields. So insightful for practice and law teaching alike. Highly recommend.’ -- Donna Shestowsky, Director of Lawyering Skills Education and Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Law, U.C. Davis School of Law, US
‘Randy Kiser’s Professional Judgment for Lawyers is a tour-de-force book every lawyer, law student, judge, arbitrator, mediator, and public policy maker should read and study. It draws on empirical research and theoretical models about human decision-making and judgment. The chapter capsules which end chapters offer wonderful syntheses of the breadth of empirical studies and theoretical frameworks about lawyering, decision-making by actors in legal systems, and policies to improve the quality of legal rules and institutions. This masterpiece is a gift for those who are in the legal profession to help them improve their professional and personal decision-making and judgment.’ -- Peter H. Huang, Professor Emeritus, University of Colorado, Law School, US
‘This is a fascinating and important book. Its overarching aim is vital: to improve decision making in all corners of the world of law. A wonderful antidote to the superficial blogs that threaten to obscure our understanding of lawyers and lawyering, Kiser has gifted us a fine volume that is clearly the result of extensive empirical research and deep reflection.' -- Richard Susskind OBE, President of the Society for Computers and Law
‘It’s been nearly 15 years since Randall Kiser jumpstarted the field of lawyer decision making with his seminal study in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies
. Now, several books later, we have Professional Judgment for Lawyers
, which weaves together the threads of neuroscience, evolutionary biology, psychology, emotion, and decision making with the context of lawyers, clients, judges, mediators, arbitrators, and jurors. This book can be safely viewed as Kiser’s magnum opus, as the depth and breadth of learning (combined with its accessibility) is truly staggering. This is a book that belongs in every lawyer’s library.’ -- William Henderson, Indiana University, Maurer School of Law, US
Table of ContentsContents: 1 Principles and Challenges 2 Neuroscience and Cognition 3 Emotions. 4 Legal Analysis and Reasoning 5 Attorneys and Clients 6 Judges, Arbitrators, and Mediators 7 Jurors and Juries 8 Insight, Hindsight, and Foresight 9 Expertise, Motivation, and Wisdom 10 Decision-making Styles 11 Individual Decision-making Expertise 12 Group Decision-making Expertise 13 Ten Decision-making Tenets Index
