#which resulted in a childhood where we didn't get yelled at we got lectured

[hellenhighwater]

You mentioned emotional stability, which I get, but it made me think of the meme about ‘how do you not cry when people yell at you’ and I’m wondering both: whether there’s as much yelling in law as in tv, and whether you’ve ever cried while doing law

Nowhere near as much yelling as TV!

The only people I've ever had yell at me are non-attorneys who are representing themselves and who do not understand how this whole system works, and generally speaking...they're not in a position where their yelling is hurtful? Every time it's happened it's been more like a person throwing a tantrum, and I just...can't take that seriously. No one I actually work with (or opposing counsel) has ever managed to yell at me. I have cut off a couple people who were working themselves in that direction and redirected things back to being civil.

Frankly: I will not put up with that shit.

The list of people who are allowed to yell at you in a professional setting is very, very short, and the circumstances where that is appropriate are few and far between. It does happen in some workplaces but that's a question of office culture and individual shitty temper. My boss would never yell at me--it's unprofessional--and if he did he'd have my resignation on his desk by the end of the day. Opposing counsel is not entitled to yell at me; I am their professional peer and I don't have to put up with it outside the courtroom, and if it's inside a courtroom, the judge is likely to shut that down.

We're lawyers. In this profession, it's widely seen that losing your temper is a sign that you have lost your professional regulation and it discredits your argument. That's true in and out of the courtroom.

I have come near tears in court, but mostly because if I hit a certain point of rage I will tear up. Twice, I've had a judge hand down a ruling so wildly unjust and unexpected that it threw me off balance and into immediate fury, but I've always been able to keep it together and carry on without actually crying.

Mostly the practice of law is just not that personal. Even if someone is yelling, it's not at me as an individual. I don't make the laws, I don't decide the facts, I just take these things and lay them out. If someone's mad, it's not usually a personal attack. And you learn to deal with and understand that kind of anger--often frustration--as you go.