Hello again my friends.  Now that the new book on productivity is finally available to buy, I have had a bit more time to go back through the “Ten Things” mailbag.  I get lots of emails from all over the world asking me questions or suggesting topics.  And I love it (so please keep doing that)!  One email stood out.  Someone reported that they recently had a mid-year review and one area of improvement for them is to develop “better judgment.”  They asked me for some tips on how to go about doing this.  Fortunately, I have a few tips to scatter about here today.  As usual, most of these were learned the hard way, i.e., by screwing up and stumbling along over the course of many years as an in-house lawyer.  My judgment certainly needed improvement early in my career (and to some extent even today, e.g., why did I think eating half a bag of Oreos last week was a good idea?  It wasn’t…[1]).  While I screwed up a lot, I did (and do) have a knack for learning the lesson the first time.  So, over time, I started to figure out what I needed to do to hone my judgment.  Want to get wiser than King Solomon?  Want to put those smug bastards Plato and Aristotle in their place?  Then keep reading as this edition of “Ten Things” walks you through what in-house lawyers need to know about developing good judgment:

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