A lawyer’s empathy is often dismissed as a “soft skill,” but research confirms it is a fundamental professional asset that directly impacts client trust, negotiation outcomes, and job satisfaction.
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We naturally assume that the only way to develop empathy is through difficult, real-world experience. However, a growing body of research suggests a surprisingly simple, low-stakes practice can dramatically increase your capacity to understand and relate to others: reading fiction. The basic idea is that imagining the complex emotional world of fictional characters serves as valuable practice for connecting with actual human beings—your clients, opposing counsel, and judges.
This connection between narrative immersion and social skill development is not just anecdotal; it is backed by the scientific community. A body of work—famously summarized by the title, “Novel Finding: Reading Fiction Improves Empathy“—demonstrates a causal link between reading certain types of fiction and a measurable improvement in Theory of Mind. For example, have you noticed that when you read a favorite novel you’re able to feel what the characters are feeling? It happens so naturally, we don’t realize this is strange. The characters aren’t real, you’ve never met them, and they’re often doing things you could never do (especially in thrillers, horror or fantasy — e.g., John Grisham, Stephen King and J.K. Rowling).
This is great news, right? An easy way for lawyers to develop more Lawyer Empathy.
But can you see the challenge? The very trait that makes you a great legal analyst—the ability to remain detached, focus on statutes, and filter emotional narratives into cold, hard facts—is the same trait that can make applying your “fiction-trained” empathy muscle so difficult when it matters most: in the conference room.
From Fictional Minds to Client Narratives: Enhanced Relationships
The true payoff of reading fiction is not just escaping reality, but learning to navigate it better. When you engage with a novel, you train your mind to pause, suspend judgment, and deeply consider a character’s motivations, even when they are flawed, contradictory, or outright illogical. This practice—of reading fictional minds—is directly transferable to the most crucial element of your practice: the client relationship.
Attorneys often struggle with the client who withholds information, exaggerates their position, or makes decisions that seem irrational based purely on the law. The empathetic lawyer understands that these actions stem not from a lack of respect for the law, but from a deeper, often unstated emotional narrative—fear, shame, loyalty, or hope.
By applying your fiction-trained empathy, you can:
- Listen Beyond the Facts: You learn to hear the emotional tone behind the dry legal details. This allows you to uncover critical information the client may not realize is relevant because they view their experience as a personal tragedy, not a legal case.
- Build Unshakeable Trust: Clients seek legal expertise, but they stay and cooperate with attorneys who make them feel understood. A client who feels their narrative has been heard—not just their testimony—is a client who trusts your strategy completely.
- Improve Client Retention: A powerful, empathetic connection makes your firm sticky. In an increasingly competitive legal market, this specialized form of Lawyer Empathy acts as a powerful differentiator, leading directly to higher client satisfaction and referrals.
The challenge is that reading fiction makes you feel like you can know, with literal clarity, what other people are thinking. Indeed, this is one of the most appealing things about great novels.
Here is an example from Elena Ferrante’s “My Brilliant Friend:”
I feel no nostalgia for our childhood: it was full of violence. Every sort of thing happened, at home and outside, every day, but I don’t recall having ever thought that the life we had there was particularly bad. Life was like that, that’s all, we grew up with the duty to make it difficult for others before they made it difficult for us. Of course, I would have liked the nice manners that the teacher and the priest preached, but I felt that those ways were not suited to our neighborhood, even if you were a girl.
Two things to notice about this passage. First, notice all the ways the writer lets you know, as a reader, what’s going on for this character: how she felt, what she wanted, thought, imagined and desired.
The second thing to notice is your reaction to reading that passage. I’ll bet you didn’t think it was at all strange to have access to the character’s interior monologue. Why would it? You’ve been reading fiction like this for most of your life.
In which case — and with great respect — reading fiction is making you crazy.
The Lawyer’s Skepticism: What If the Character Is a Wizard?
This is where the seasoned legal professional might pause. It’s easy to feel profound empathy for a hero fighting a dragon, a desperate spy, or a character facing a high-stakes, life-or-death decision. But what good is that training when you are facing a quiet mediation or a standard corporate contract dispute?
The challenge lies in the difference between high-stakes fictional empathy and the nuance of routine lawyering. A thriller provides an easy emotional hook; a client facing a complicated lien or a property boundary dispute requires a deeper, more active application of Lawyer Empathy. The lawyer’s training is to detach emotion, standardize the facts, and find the objective path. This logical discipline, while essential for practice, can become a mental barrier to the very skill that reading fiction enhances.
The goal is not to bring fantasy to the courtroom, but to use the imaginative training of fiction to stay engaged with the client’s underlying anxiety and concerns—the small, human dramas that drive every legal case, no matter how technical.
In real life, you can never know what’s going on in another person’s mind. (The best you can do is ask.) But that’s not the only illusion fiction works on your brain.
There’s also the problem of narrative.
What you read in a book is heavily edited and revised, through dozens of drafts, to create a neat, coherent, digestible story. Novels are like emotional pabulum: Authors chew up life experience to regurgitate into readers’ brains.
The point is not to diminish the effort and beauty of great writing. The point is who does the work of describing lived experience.
The passage above presents one interpretation of certain events in the character’s childhood. It’s a plausible interpretation, but you read it as the only interpretation.
Is that what your life is like — especially in your legal practice? Univalent, unambiguous cause and effect?
Of course not.
In fact, I’ll bet many of the misunderstandings you encounter are caused by someone failing to appreciate that their interpretation of events is not the only reasonable interpretation of events.
From Literary Theory to Legal Practice: Actionable Steps
Attorneys need practical, immediate application. This concluding section should offer concrete steps for how a lawyer can intentionally bridge the gap between their empathetic training from fiction and their daily professional duties.
The Pre-Meeting Pause (Empathy Activation)
Action: Before any client meeting, negotiation, or court appearance, spend 60 seconds intentionally stepping away from the legal filing.
Fiction Connection: Just as you pause to consider a fictional character’s unseen motivations, use this moment to consider the opposing party’s (or your client’s) emotional motivation. Ask yourself: What is the hidden, non-legal narrative driving this person?
Practice Active Narrative Listening
Action: During client intake or conversations, resist the urge to immediately filter their story into legal elements (liability, damages, jurisdiction).
Fiction Connection: Allow the client to tell their full, messy story without interruption. Your Lawyer Empathy skill, honed by following complex narratives, lets you absorb the “plot” first. Only after you understand the emotional context should you pivot to the “fact-finding” lawyer role.
Seek the “Gray” (The Ethical Fiction)
Action: Recognize that in many legal situations, especially litigation, you are dealing with two competing, self-justified narratives—neither of which is entirely factual or fictional.
Fiction Connection: Great fiction rarely presents pure heroes and villains; it thrives in moral ambiguity. Using this lens of complexity helps you approach settlement and negotiation with better insight into the other side’s concessions and moral high ground.
If you’re a lawyer who likes to read, there are two ways to keep bad habits in check.
First, read with awareness. Put a Post-it note on the book’s cover to remind you that in real life you need to ask what’s going on for other people.
Second, read with other people. One of the great things about book clubs is the opportunity to discuss different interpretations of the same text. Realizing your favorite character is completely unbelievable to another person is maybe the best thing that reading fiction can do for your legal practice.
Developing Lawyer Empathy is not a mystical undertaking; it’s a trainable skill sharpened outside the office, often by reading fiction. By engaging with complex fictional characters, you practice the subtle art of stepping outside your own legal perspective to truly understand another’s narrative. This blend of literary imagination and professional emotional intelligence is what transforms a competent attorney into an exceptional one. To serve your clients better and find deeper satisfaction in your career, make space not just for legal precedents, but for the human stories that prepare you for every case.
Illustration ©iStockPhoto.com
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