5 NLP Tips for Legal Professionals With(out) Learning Difficulties

Can lawyers and legal professionals with learning difficulties get help without incurring too much cost in time, money, and energy?  If yes, how can NLP help?  

Law is an immensely demanding profession on the usage of language.  Learning difficulties don’t choose what professions they target, hence many a lawyer and legal professional struggles with words and numbers.  If their learning difficulties are severe, legal professionals may have been diagnosed with dyslexia or dyscalculia ( = the numerical version of dyslexia).   Many legal professionals are ashamed to admit their learning difficulties because they are supposed to be the pillars of our society. And there’s no room for weakness in a pillar, right?  Others might be brave enough to seek help, but don’t know whether there is help or where to look for it.  And since all this takes time which they don’t have, they carry on suffering in silence.

Dyslexia and dyscalculia occur to the most intelligent, creative, and highly visual people. Visual = people who prevalently think and process information in pictures.  The core cause of dyslexia and dyscalculia is that people use their visual skills in the wrong manner for handling words and numbers.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) helps legal professionals with learning difficulties.

Good spellers see clear and still ( = not moving) words in their imaginations.  Poor spellers spell by how the word sounds, or whether the word feels right. Or they may have words moving around and creating chaos in their heads.  The same strategies apply to numbers.  These incorrect approaches stem from the fact that English has been taught in schools by phonics.  Phonics encourage sounding words out, not visualizing them.  Older lawyers and legal professionals in some countries will remember this from their schooldays.

Since law is a primarily auditory profession, legal eagles with difficulties with spelling, reading, writing, or mental mathematical operations daily reinforce their learning difficulties as they use sound instead of visualizing without realizing it.  So how can anyone (especially the older folks) break the cycle?  Can old dogs learn new tricks?

Try these 5 tips

• Reading is a visual activity.  Therefore always hold the page you’re reading up at your eye level, or if the reading material is too large and heavy to hold, prop it with other objects against the desk so that the reading material is in a slanted position, not flat on the desk.  Your visual field is at your eye level. And because your brain is now processing a visual activity visually, you’ll naturally read faster and take in the read information more easily.
• Abstract content, such as legal literature, can seem impossible to absorb and retain.  This is because abstract words have no pictures.  When I say courtroom, you can imagine what it is.  But court injunction has no picture. Nor does on, in, up, before, after, was, who, hereby, thenceforth, heretofore, etc.  Therefore read legal literature section by section and train your brain to visualize whatever comes to mind while you’re reading. And remember it.
• If you make reminder notes on postits, make one note per postit.  Your brain will have one clear chunk of information to process.  One is easier to handle than many on one postit!
• When you’re writing, keep your eyes far enough from the page to see the whole page.  If you bend too close over the page, you’ll lose yourself in the maze of letters and may only see parts of words, misspell them, get lost and confused.
• When you’re reading, writing, or typing anything, always keep your feet flat firmly on the ground.  Grounding will slow down the busyness in your head and keep you calm and concentrating.

Are you a legal professional with or without learning difficulties who would benefit from NLP help?  Or do you know one?  Let’s talk about it.