Slow Lawyering: How Law Practitioners Can Slow Down in a High-Speed World and Why It Matters

Abstract

"Information overload," "digital detox," and "fear of missing out" are all unwelcome additions to modem jargon, defining the ambivalence with which we approach the infusion of information in our everyday lives and the speed with which we can access it. For law practitioners who find, manage, and integrate information for a living, this environment creates particular challenges. This article gives context to these challenges through the lens of human evolution, seeking to explain why individuals engage in counterproductive behaviors with respect to information and the speed that it is accessed. The article also discusses the reasons that technology, and the pace at which it bombards law practitioners with information, interferes with the effective practice of law. This article will then present four steps that may help law practitioners to think calmly, deliberately, and with focus in a world that comes at them at 670 million miles per hour.

Keywords: Slow Lawyering, Mindfulness, Well-being