Soft Skills training Forum

[questions4law]

I assume that the 'soft skills' are just as important as the hard skills that law school teaches? Are there any classes or courses that teach these skills?

[NonTradHealthLaw]

Wtf is a soft skill?

[questions4law]

Soft skills enable you to relate in an effective manner with other people and with your your work. They include communication skills, the ability to make decisions,self-motivation, creativity and problem solving skills, the ability to project empathy.

[NonTradHealthLaw]

Maybe tangentially in a clinic; otherwise, you either know how to be a human or you're sociopathic. Both of which are marketable traits.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Some (most?) law schools offer courses on negotiations. And of course legal writing is supposed to address communication skills. That's probably the closest to what you're talking about. Nothing that I saw in law school taught anything at all related to how to make decisions, self-motivation, or projecting empathy.

[DrRighteous]

Some law schools offer leadership courses, which occasionally include material on emotional intelligence.

[crumb cake]

Nothing that I saw in law school taught anything at all related to how to make decisions, self-motivation, or projecting empathy.

Just to qualify this a bit: Some negotiations courses spend a unit or more on emotional intelligence, and a variety of courses have assignments that involve negotiations. There also seems to be a decent number of courses on other soft skills across the T14.

http://www.law.northwestern.edu/law-sch ... urriculum/
http://web.law.columbia.edu/courses/sections/18919

[A. Nony Mouse]

May have just been my law school, then - we had negotiations and mediation, but I don't think they had much to do with self-motivation. The Columbia coursed aren't law courses, though, and most of the NU stuff isn't courses for academic credit.

Edit: I think my reaction springs mostly from disbelief that law schools actually care about soft skills, even if there are opportunities available.