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Current Course Offerings
The Likeable Lawyer offers a fresh, provocative and entertaining perspective on increasing professional success and personal fulfillment. We have presented more than 500 highly regarded programs for lawyers, organizations and law firms, in over 30 states.
Approved Courses
Each of the following is eligible for CLE credit in most states, and qualifies for Ethics, Professionalism and other specialty types of CLE credit.
CLE credit varies by state. Click on "find course options" under each description to find the formats available for the course, and then use our CLE calculator to get specific credit information for your state.
Full-day and Half-day Courses
The Trusted Lawyer
This entertaining presentation is an eye-opener for most participants. Illustrated with colorful examples and anecdotes, this program illuminates the dynamics of communication, perception, interpretation, and the consequences of unintentional communication. Participants then learn rewarding and easy-to-employ approaches to human interaction that increase trust and professional success. Program length: 3.5 hours
The Persuasive Lawyer
Most lawyers heavily rely upon logic to persuade their intended audience. This course looks to the roles of passion and emotion and the human factors that affect persuasion and influence, including other-person, curiosity-based communication and the elements of having a learning conversation. This class equips lawyers with valuable tools to reduce defensiveness and maintain influence in challenging situations. Program length: 3.5 hours
Lessons from Aristotle
Success in negotiation, persuasion and conflict resolution is the ability to influence the attitudes and actions of other people. Aristotle describes this as a function of ethos (credibility), pathos (invoking the right emotion), and logos (logical reasoning). This course gives lawyers from any practice area the advantage by demonstrating the weapons of automatic influence, the art of invoking the right emotions to compel action, and the science of reducing defensive reactions and other difficult behaviors. Program length: 6.5 hours
Hindsight, Foresight and Insight
Do you want more influence over clients, lawyers, juries, and others? This engaging program examines the rational, perceptual and emotional components of decision-making, and will give lawyers from any practice area unique and practical insight into how to persuade decision-makers to their favor. Program length: 3.5 hours
From Headaches to Handshakes
Why struggle so hard to get your way? This engaging program illuminates four important elements used by highly influential lawyers to win cooperation. While logical reasoning is critical, this program explores the other two-thirds of persuasion—the subtleties of interaction that build the support you need. Program length: 3.5 hours
In Defense of Anger
Centered around a 1-hour live theatrical performance and based upon interviews conducted with attorneys nationwide, this program illuminates communication choices which significantly improve professional relationships. Program length: 3.5 hours
Short Courses, Basis of Influence Series
Part 1: Leadership, Trust and the 9 Techniques of Automatic Influence
For millennium, scholars have looked to the causes of influence and persuasion. Most of these causes are outside of one’s conscious awareness; a person will either feel drawn to or repelled by a lawyer’s attempt to influence and persuade. This course explores the factors that affect an attorney’s effectiveness in leadership and persuasion, including the roles of “perceived” trust and relationship, and what scholars have identified as the 9 Techniques of Automatic Influence. Program length: 2.0 hours
Part 2: Passion, Reciprocation and Getting What You Want
At the heart of a lawyer’s success is the attorney’s ability to elicit support from clients, lawyers, fact-finders, and co-workers. Aristotle discussed this 2,300 years ago as being dependent upon the ability to arouse in another the right emotion, consistent with the support sought. This program explores how to arouse the emotions which evoke the desire in others to support your objectives. Program length: 2.0 hours
Part 3: Active Listening and the 4 Phases of Having a Learning Conversation
This program examines some common communication tendencies when under stress: withdrawal and aggression. In this course, lawyers develop tools to increase influence and success by incorporating the elements of active listening and having a learning conversation. Program length: 1.5 hours
Part 4: Avoiding the Consequences of Unintentional Communication
This program looks at communications with clients, opposing counsel, staff and otherwise, and discusses the dynamics of why professional communication is sometimes negatively misinterpreted. Attorneys learn simple yet immediately effective methods for improving communication, building rapport, and increasing success when working with others. Program length: 2.5 hours
Part 5: Reducing the Effects of Stress and Anxiety on Negotiation and Well-Being
In this program, lawyers look at how intense work demands and stress can cause breakdowns in communication, effectiveness, and health. Lawyers come to recognize that much of stress and anxiety is self-induced and based on an erroneous perception of danger. Through this understanding, attorneys learn to consciously intervene, and how to easily reactivate the parts of the brain necessary for clarity, health, and achieving our objectives. Program length: 2.0 hours
Short Courses, Negotiation Success Series
Part 1:The Principles of Expansive Negotiation
Most lawyers devote the lion’s share of negotiation planning to marshalling facts and building arguments. Encouraged by a culture of oppositional negotiation, it is easy to become entrenched in our positions. This course introduces an expansive negotiation style which increases our aptitude for persuasion, while reducing defensiveness and aggressive behavior on both sides of the table. Program length: 2.0 hours
Part 2: Negotiation Preparation: Developing a Needs Map
Preparation is one of the most important aspects of long-term negotiation success. This program examines two aspects of negotiation preparation and a highly effective model for creating a map of needs and interests in order to achieve more favorable resolutions, and increase influence and cooperation in negotiation. Program length: 2.0 hours
Part 3: Generating Discourse Toward Expansive Solutions
Much of our society embraces a "win-lose" negotiation model that encourages lawyers to distance themselves from the other side of the table. This program examines the diminishing returns in the "win-lose" approach, and examines methods for expanding the pie, finding common ground, and uncovering creative solutions for getting more needs met. Program length: 2.0 hours
Part 4: Developing Proposals and Negotiating to Resolution
In this section, lawyers learn to develop a range of proposals that address the majority of the needs of both sides, and then discuss various negotiation strategies to achieve more favorable resolutions. The goal of this program is to leave lawyers with strategies for structuring negotiation in a way which ensures that challenging conditions do not derail the process. Program length: 2.0 hours
Part 5: Beyond Hardball
There are times when we are forced to engage with individuals who we perceive as difficult. Often they employ strategies, threatening behavior, and an uncooperative working style as a means to achieve their objectives. While these instances are challenging, if we are committed to our objectives, we can still be effective negotiators by winning their willingness to cooperate. Program length: 2.0 hours
Patton Boggs
Attorney, Duke University
Earl, Curley & Lagarde
Progressive Insurance