There were only a few days left before the deadline for responding to a lawsuit. I was alone in my living room watching the rain outside and feeling warm with the petticoats on the table, while I held the civil code in my hands and thought about which precepts could help me win that lawsuit about demarcation and action claiming. Suddenly, I was consulting jurisprudence and about to give up, when my eyes stopped at a sentence on a very similar case to the one I was defending. Quickly, I began to take notes and collect the articles of the civil text that would serve to support my foundations. Of course, at that time I also came up with several evidences to propose.

I had only been practicing for a short time and now I always remember that winter afternoon of loneliness and focus at work as a crucial moment that showed me what some professors and veteran lawyers had recommended to us: the study of jurisprudence is fundamental, we can win a case that at first we had considered to be lost.

When I attend a conference, a doctoral thesis defense, or a legal event, in addition to helping me change my environment and take a break from my activity at the firm, in these occasions I have the opportunity to become aware of everything I have yet to learn in order to defend adequately the cases that my clients trust me. Some colleagues would find me at these events and ask me why I am not at my law firm and I tell them that part of my time is devoted to perfecting my knowledge and listening to other lawyers from whom I learn other points of view, solutions and conclusions. 

I also recommend attending courses and conferences on public speaking, communication, legal marketing, time management and other useful legal skills.

I like to remember how in my early years I would go into a law bookstore, consult many books about the case that was most difficult for me at the time, and buy two or three that referred to that lawsuit. Later, in my office, I underlined the sections that interested me, leaving my defense strategy enriched with this new knowledge provided by other jurists who had dedicated so much time to their work. Today, I still do the same.

I recently read "The Lawyer's Profession", a book written by an Italian lawyer in the Mussolini years. I have it on my desk to see it every day, because although it was written a century ago, when I read its passages in quiet moments at the office, I see myself reflected in those scenes that describe what happened to my late colleague in a court of Rome or Venice, his disputes with some disrespectful judge, his moral support for a wife who had been abandoned by her spouse or a deceived husband, or the great responsibility he assumed when taking charge of a criminal case in which the prosecutor requested many years in prison. Before registering as a lawyer, I read and underlined books about our profession such as "Abogacía y abogados" by Martínez Val or "El alma de la Toga" by Ángel Ossorio, works that I have at my fingertips to consult since I always learn something new from them.

I also recommend attending courses and conferences on public speaking, communication, legal marketing, time management and other legal skills, either face-to-face or online; as well as reading books about it. When we begin to apply techniques and tools that appear in those courses or works, we see how we can always improve as lawyers.

A lawyer should read the news daily and not just the legal news

There are many other ways in which a lawyer can be trained to hone his or her knowledge. We can learn a lot from our fellow professionals by listening carefully to their talks about cases they have defended or are currently defending, not having to mind asking them the questions we deem appropriate about “our case”. A lawyer should read the news every day and not only the legal news, since the protagonist of some of the cases that occupy those headlines or a similar one may surprise you at your office the next day.

We will also know more about economics, finance, international politics, new technologies, etc. The press and specialized magazines will provide us with ideas that we can take advantage of in some of our defenses, in which any halo of light can lead us to a successful approach. Legal magazines, comparative law, digital legal newspapers can contain treasures for us jurists.

When I was in my last year of college, I took the opportunity to go to the office of a lawyer friend in the afternoons and I also enrolled in a course on forensic practice. When I finished my degree, I invested one of my first salaries in Dale Carnegie's Human Relations and Public Speaking course. Ever since, I have taken legal practice courses and many others, but I must highlight my enrollment a decade ago in doctoral courses to write my thesis on the crime of money laundering. Those many hours that I dedicated to studying while I continued with the firm opened, helped me to specialize even more in economic criminal law and appreciate the importance of dogmatics in criminal defense.

A lawyer cannot believe that after finishing the degree in Law and having been practicing for a few years, he already knows almost everything. We must study every day, every week. With this habit, we will know how to adequately deal with each case that our clients entrust to us. In addition, we will acquire more confidence and security in ourselves when we have to issue an opinion and, of course, in the forum before the court that we will try to convince with our arguments.