Today’s guest, Dr. Larry Richard, practiced as a trial attorney for 10 years before earning a PhD in organizational psychology. Today, he is a leading expert on why lawyers behave the way they do. For over 30 years, Dr. Richard has been researching how lawyers behave and why. He founded LawyerBrain LLC, which advises the leaders of major law firms on the human side of running a practice—things like culture, leadership, change management, resilience, and collaboration.
Here are the 7 outlier personality traits that characterize lawyers, according to Dr. Richard’s research:
• Much higher level of skepticism than the general public
• Much higher need for autonomy
• Higher level of abstract reasoning—lawyers like using their intellect to solve problems, but also like to argue
• Higher level of urgency—lawyers want closure, are impatient
• Lower level of empathy—less inclined to take the perspective of others
• Lower level of sociability—i.e., not very comfortable with emotional vulnerability, very private, guarded about personal issues
• And, the most important one—lawyers are dramatically and pervasively low in resilience (i.e., 20% lower average resilience score than the general public, and 90% of lawyers have a resilience score in the bottom half of the scale! That makes us thin-skinned, insecure, defensive, and easily wounded.)
Dr. Richard and his wife, D’Arcy Lyness, PhD, also a psychologist, have just written a book entitled Thin-Skinned: Why Lawyers Are So Low in Resilience, and the New Science That Can Help. It will be published by the American Bar Association in July of 2026. The book explains why lawyers are so consistently low in resilience, and then offers over 50 different scientifically supported self-help practices that can help lawyers build resilience, manage stress, and improve overall well-being.
Join us on this episode today to explore why lawyers, according to Dr. Richard, are among the least resilient professionals in the workplace. We talk about how the deeply ingrained skepticism of attorneys is colliding with the unprecedented pace of change brought on by AI and a rapidly evolving legal landscape.
Read the full transcript of today’s episode here.
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