Customer Reviews

Lawyers' Poker: 52 Lessons that Lawyers Can Learn from Card Players

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Lawyers' Poker: 52 Lessons that Lawyers Can Learn from Card PlayersSteven Lubet's book will be very valuable to mediators and negotiators. Even though poker is a zero sum game, every mediator or negotiator faces a zero sum game: can we find the zone of agreement?

Where Steven's book is valuable, and this is what I concentrated on in my longer review on bizop.ca, is that every negotiator has to figure out how strong the other party believes his own case is, how strong I believe that the other party's case is, and various permutations of the "recursive reasoning".

No less an authority than the Nobel Prize Winner Professor Thomas Schelling has also endorsed Lubet's characterization of a lawyer has someone who has to solve the "recursive" reasoning problem.

Poker gives very clear examples of how to solve this strategic thinking.

Steven Lubet doesn't claim that all lawyers need to know can be learned from poker players, but he does provide clear and compelling examples of how poker players think strategically and his legal examples are enlightening.

Generally, I would characterize Steven Lubet's book as a contribution to that part of cognitive science which focuses on the interaction between heuristics and rational thought in decision theory. And as such it is both unique and valuable.

This is a rare book about an esoteric subject which the author has made clearly understandable for a wide audience of readers. Every one who faces the misfortune to become involved in the legal process should make this their first read. It helps one understand the games lawyers play with the fates and lives of their clients, opponents, judges and juries. Those not so unfortunate will appreciate the transfer of densely packed knowledge in an extremely lively and memorable package. Those who don't understand the allure of poker will gain appreciation for the game as a model for life situations.

Professor Lubet's book is thought-provoking, instructive, and entertaining. The similarities between litigation and poker are evident to every litigator, but Professor Lubet's accounts of various poker maneuvers and strategies will cause even the most seasoned litigator to reexamine conventional thinking. One example: the traditional strategy in defending a deposition is to limit the deponent's responses as much as possible. Professor Lubet suggests the contrary-that showing your cards in a deposition may increase the pot because 90 percent of cases settle rather than proceed to trial.

Similarly, the early raise (presenting substantial discovery early in the case) even if a bluff (because counsel does not have the resources to consider proceeding to trial), can pay dividends.

Whether the reader is a card player or not, Professor Lubet achieves the difficult task of presenting poker big game moves in an understandable but exciting way. This book is a valuable, entertaining read for every litigator. The uninitiated poker player will have a new found respect for the game.

Inexperienced poker players often mistake poker for a game of chance. In fact, good players recognize that good hands and bad hands even out after many hands. It is the skill with which they play that separates losers from their money.

The advocacy system of law in the USA can appear too much of a game of chance to outsiders. However, Steven Lubet uses poker as a metaphor and guide to the methods behind the apparent madness of lawyerly questions and argument. The writing style is elegant without drowning in complicated language or "legalese." The author's dry wit is an added joy.

There's far less that could be learned from this book than one could by watching a few law-related TV shows.

The poker related explanations are rather mediocre so that poker players would get bored, and one gets a feeling that the author is stretching to find an anecdote to fit every situation.

The text is peppered with anecdotes that are mildly interesting, both poker-related and from legal cases. If there's the ideal book that brings the two topics together, this is not it. I found no eye-popping revelations, it felt like a routine drill, covering all the angles--never going too deep.

I actually picked up this book to see if I could learn anything in preparation for a tort case--as I am not a lawyer but a competent poker player. I learned one thing from this book--conceptually, it is not a bad idea to share enough information before trial (during or before discovery) to arrive at a situation where the opponent has enough to achieve an optimal settlement.

So many aspects of law are so complicated that by the time you get to be a lawyer, poker has little to teach you that haven't already seen. The book proved this belief.

Terrific book. A good read with much substantive and wise advice. I really enjoyed it.

This is an unusual packaging of standard lawyer "wisdom" that lawyers with more than a couple of years' experience will long since have read elsewhere. But it is interesting for what it tells neophyte poker players about how experienced players think.

I practiced law for 30 years, most of which I was a litigator. From that perspective, Professor Lubet's book is a wonderful metaphor for learning trial practice at its most essential level. These are complementary skills that teach practitioners of both poker-playing and lawyering about probability, risk, reward, and dealing with opponents and less-than-perfect hands. These skills are best learned in a small-bore environment where lessons can be learned and reflected on without risk to one's clients.

I finished Lawyer's Poker just the other night. As a middling-bad poker player with an enjoyment of the game and a fan of Jim McManus' book, Fifth Street, I really found the stories amusing, interesting and educational. Keep up the good work.

The author (Lubet) uses anecdotes from famous trials to compare actions of poker players with trial lawyers and the witnesses they examine. As a recent law graduate, I noticed he is the same author as two of my trial advocacy text books from law school. Since the publisher is not known for producing pulp, I bought the book for some post-graduate light reading and was not disappointed. However, don't come here looking for secret trial strategies that nobody else knows, nothing in the book is truly earth shattering.

There is a false assumption among some reviewers (and somewhat present throughout the book) that poker players are quite similar to lawyers. This comparison is as predictable as it is delusional. Most law school graduates can make a modest living in law, but most people who can play poker (even very good players) will unfortunately lose their shirts if they were to attempt to make it their livelihood. Though there may be some behavioral similarities among the two, doing even moderately well at poker takes considerably more skill than doing so in law.

The author points out important differences, particularly in the areas of ethics, lying and flat out mechanical cheating. Lawyers can get away with things that poker players cannot, and vice versa, and the limits of each adjust with the passing of time and the advance of technology.

One of the most interesting observations the author makes is that as the respectability of poker playing is on the rise, the respectability of the legal profession is in decline. Make of this what you will, but unfortunately I agree with him here.