The year was 1976, I was 40 years old, and I had just lost the biggest case of my career. It was a crushing defeat exacerbated by the fact that my firm had spent the unheard of amount of $100,000 in preparing the case. I left the courtroom stunned, unable to communicate with anyone, seeking the refuge of isolation and alcohol. I purchased a couple of six packs of beer and headed for a remote street to drink and reflect on my pain.

I began to ask myself some serious questions:

• What was wrong with me?
• Who was I?
• Why was I drinking in my car?

That led me to self exploration and the beginning of a reawakening. Please come with me on my journey.

Find out how I was able to heal, recognize my need to change, and overcome my addiction to alcohol in Getting a Winning Verdict in My Personal Life: A Trial Lawyer Finds His Soul

Dealing with our losses can be very difficult. I have been talking about how we deal with our losses for some time now. I recently saw on T.V. a very interesting contrast of how two young men dealt with very public losses and rejections.

I am a fan of the T.V. program “So You Think You Can Dance”. There are some terrific young dancers who compete to be the best dancer in America on the program. They are currently trying to reach the top twenty that will then perform on the program over the next few months.

The program interviews some of the dancers after they have been cut from the program. Many of them show a great deal of emotion, but two men who were cut from the program had dramatic opposite ways of dealing with those losses.

How Not to Deal With Loss

The first man was a very talented dancer who was completely convinced that he would make the top twenty. However, he didn’t do very well in his audition and when he was told he was cut by the judges, he collapsed with tears of anger and frustration.

In a short interview while leaving the building, he continued to express anger, frustration and disbelief. His firmly held expectations that he would make the top twenty hadn’t been met. His reaction to his loss was one of immaturity and blame of others.

Grace Under Pressure

On the other hand, another young dancer was cut and his response was markedly different. His first comment was, “well things happen for a reason and I have to accept this decision”. I am sure he felt as strongly about being cut from the loss as the other young man, but his reaction showed a much deeper sense of self-confidence, self-esteem, and spiritual and self-understanding. His wife was one of the other dancers. She gave him a big hug and she was in tears over his rejection by the program. Once again, he simply responded, “I know that all things happen for a reason and I will accept this decision and move on with my life.”

All Things Happen For a Reason: Learning From Loss

These were two very visible and public examples of how young people deal with their failed expectations and losses. The second young man was right on point. All things do happen for a reason and when we understand that and accept it, all of our losses become much easier to bear. We can learn valuable lessons from them, instead of letting them control us. We must learn from our losses.

Lawyers are challenged by addiction at a rate of over 50% that of the general population, says the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs. If you know anyone whose life is impacted by drinking or other addiction, the Lawyer Addiction Blog is a great resource.

Learn more about my book, Getting a Winning Verdict in My Personal Life.

Rembrandt, Return of the Prodigal Son, 1662

In my previous article, 3 Hard-Earned Lessons From Losing, I discussed concepts that can help you to deal more peacefully with losing a case. This article discusses what may be the hardest of all the lessons we learn from our losses: forgiveness.

Why Forgiveness?

Forgiveness is a process of letting go. Releasing our feelings of resentment, anger, and especially, self-righteousness is not as easy as it sounds. However, it is the only way to heal the wounds of our perceived losses.

If we can forgive those involved in our losses (clients, witnesses, judges, juries, or opposing counsel):

• We release negative emotions.
• We dictate how we felt about the loss.
• We are in control.

If we hang on to bitterness, anger and resentment:

• We can’t grow and move forward.
• These negative feelings handicap our ability to act with the courage we need. This courage comes from being in touch with our deepest spiritual values, and there is nothing more powerful than this.
• We become true winners.

How Do You Become a Real Winner?

Winners are not necessarily the people who walk away with victories. Being a real winner has to do with values.

• Winners have integrity.
• Winners have courage.
• Winners sometimes lose cases.
• Losers have arrogance when they win and bitterness when they lose.

The Role Materialism Plays in Winning

Materialism also affects who is a winner and who is a loser.

• Trial lawyers who are interested only in money have an exaggerated fear of losing. They don’t take the risk of trying a tough case because it may not be in the interest of their bottom line.
• Plaintiff attorneys who take on the cause of justice act out of courage. They are not afraid to take on powerful defendants. They are fearless Davids in the face of giant Goliaths. They are the real winners.

We must dedicate ourselves to the art of accepting our losses and being real winners. What tips do you have for accepting losses?

As trial lawyers the desire to win is so deeply instilled in us that it is difficult to think about losing. We don’t want to talk about our losses. We only want to bask in the glory of our victories, no matter how large or small. However, any lawyer in litigation is going to have to deal with losses and will probably suffer many of them.

Lesson 1: Perseverance

We need to prepare to fight the next battle. We cannot allow losing to become such a huge bogeyman that it frightens us from trying our next tough case. Otherwise, our value as lawyers and human beings is diminished. We must be willing to take the next risk and try, try, and try again.

Lesson 2: Humility

Every time we win, or think we win, we get a little more puffed up with ourselves. Our ego grows, and we become more self-centered. It is easy to get involved in our cases and think that it is our win and not our client’s. We often think of our cases in self-centered ways. The moment of triumph in winning can so easily inflate our narcissistic egos that we lose sight of the importance of our victories, and the credit others deserve.

Lesson 3: Compassion

How often have we consoled a fellow attorney after a loss and told him or her not to take it so hard? We can empathize with that person. Our heart goes out to our colleague. And, yet, when we look at our own losses, we are usually harsh on ourselves. We do not extend to ourselves the same compassion that we extend to others. We blame ourselves and are rigidly unforgiving of our losses.

Maybe it’s time we begin to be a little easier on ourselves and recognize that losing isn’t the end of the world. Some of life’s greatest lessons come from these so-called losses. It is more important to accept our losses and learn from them than to bask in the glory of our wins, from which we often learn nothing.

Vince Lombardi

“There is no room for second place. I have finished second twice…and I never want to finish second again…It is, and always has been, an American zeal to be first in anything we do and to win and to win and to win.”  — Vince Lombardi

Many, if not most, trial lawyers have such a deep-seated fear of losing that it becomes almost impossible to acknowledge that emotion. It is a dark shadow within us that we don’t want to face. The fear of losing is really the fear of failure. And failure is embarrassing and shameful. It brings up childhood memories that are often too overwhelming to face.

How Do We Feel When We Lose?

Angry, shamed, and resentful—all negative emotions that we want to put behind us as quickly as possible. Sometimes we deal with our failures by drinking excessively, throwing ourselves into work, taking our feelings out on others, or by withdrawing emotionally. A loss can make us feel our lives are failures. Depression can soon follow with all its attendant problems.

High Depression and Suicide Rates

High depression and suicide rates among lawyers are due, in part, to the terrific pressure put on us by our own fear of failure and our reaction to losing. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his fireside chats during World War II, told the nation that the only thing we have to rear is fear itself. He was right. Fear paralyzes us. It makes us timid and uncertain of our actions. A true trial lawyer is not timid or uncertain.

Defeat is Not Failure

If we approach our cases with courage and do our best to overcome our fears, we are of to a good start. However, we must be prepared to lose. And when we lose, we must recognize that it is not defeat that makes us fail.

Our refusal to see the defeat as a necessary part of learning about success makes us fail. There can be no success without failure. There can be no wins without losses. They are two sides of the same coin. We must learn from our losses.