TOP DRAWER BOOK REVIEW
by
HL Carpenter

 

Winning Every Time
by Lis Wiehl
288 pages; hardcover; $24.95
Ballantine Books, New York, 2004

Be prepared.

Even if you’re no longer a Boy Scout – or never were one – the familiar motto has practical applications. According to Lis Wiehl, attorney and author of Winning Every Time, being prepared is the lawyerly secret to winning arguments and influencing people.

Whether you laughed at the last lawyer joke you heard or not, one thing is true – they’ve had plenty of time to perfect a system of advocacy. And when you’re seeking a raise, trying to get a refund or convince a family member how right your point of view is, you are advocating for yourself. Knowing the techniques can come in handy.

Applying them may be a different story.

Ms. Wiehl does a fine job of presenting eight rules to follow. But the key to making the process work is keeping your cool. That’s not to say you have to be dispassionate. After all, if you have no strong feelings about an issue, you’re not likely to be interested in presenting an argument in the first place.

The point is, managing to keep your eye on your goal without being sidetracked by your emotions can be difficult when you have a personal stake in the outcome. Being one step removed is the advantage lawyers have when presenting a case in a courtroom.

Winning Every Time takes recognized keys to success - having a goal, gathering the facts needed to accomplish that goal, staying focused on the goal – and presents them with a legal slant. While you may find the behind-the-scenes preparation for actual court cases interesting, you already know the book’s basic premise.

You learned it from the Scouts.

 

Review originally published May 2004.