What I Learned About Inclusion and Why It Matters

WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT INCLUSION AND WHY IT MATTERS By: Joshua D. Hedrick

Whitt, Cooper, Hedrick & Wojcik

LEARNING TO LISTEN: WHY INCLUSION MATTERS

As lawyers, we are charged with building and maintaining relationships. Sometimes they are our own, such as relationships with clients and other lawyers. Sometimes they are our clients’, such as their relationships with their family members or their employers. Sometimes they are between strangers, such as the jury and a witness, or the jury and our client.

When I began my career as a criminal defense lawyer, I had to learn a new world. I had to learn to navigate difficulties that I had never experienced. People who had difficulties that I had never encountered and could not imagine, but whose difficulties formed the lens through which they viewed the world. Inclusivity is, in my opinion, making an effort to understand someone else’s story rather than to expect them to act and think in a way convenient to you. There were people that I met and worked for who came from a background totally different from my own. I had to learn and understand their stories so that I could understand how to talk with them. Talking at people is easy. It is much harder to find a way to approach someone in a way that you can build a connection with them and have a real impact. This is true for clients, juries, and witnesses. We are all comfortable in our own world, but we make the most impact when we are able to reach out and build a connection with another world.

There is a Yiddish word “rachmunis”, which means empathy, or understanding. To me, that’s inclusivity. It means that if you find that your client had a traumatic childhood, you go beyond a dutiful note in the case file to find out what that was like and how it impacted her by finding a way to truly understand those feelings as best you can given the limits of your own experience. An ability to connect with someone on their level, whatever that might be is a sign of respect – to come to them as they are, make an effort to understand where they come from, and connect with them.

Most of you probably do the same, but when I first meet a new client, I don’t like to talk about the case. I usually like to talk about them first, to find a way to build a connection as two people. In my opinion, that’s the core of inclusivity. Oftentimes people will talk about ways to make someone who is different feel welcome, but inclusivity really is finding a way to make someone feel as though they are unique without being unusual. If we can find a way to connect with people from all backgrounds and all walks of life, then we will make ourselves into more effective communicators and more effective relationship builders. It will make us more effective at relating to witnesses, to clients, and to juries. The best lawyers are, in my opinion, the best communicators. Inclusivity is a matter of understanding and relating to your audience.