The Skills Coach: You advocate – But do you ask?

By Lori Berman

From the outset, lawyers are trained to advocate. Law school teaches how to analyze information, apply relevant law, take a position, and argue that position persuasively. Those skills are essential to helping lawyers represent clients’ interests effectively and with conviction.

However, another critical skill tends to be overlooked and underdeveloped, both in law school and in law firms: Inquiry. How strong is your inquiry muscle?

By inquiry, I don’t mean cross-examination. I mean genuine curiosity. Asking questions to understand how someone else sees an issue rather than to win the point or steer the conversation toward a predetermined conclusion.

In my work with lawyers, this imbalance shows up frequently. Advocacy is strong. Inquiry is underdeveloped. And that gap quietly undermines judgment, collaboration, and trust.

Why this matters – Especially for lawyers

Strong advocacy without inquiry creates predictable problems.

Meetings end in frustration because the decision did not go the way someone expected or because misunderstandings linger. Negotiations unnecessarily drag out because the real drivers or interests on the other side never surface. Colleagues clash because each is convinced the other “just doesn’t get it,” when in reality, neither has fully understood the other’s perspective.

As lawyers become more senior, the work shifts from executing tasks to helping shape decisions and direction with clients and colleagues, including anticipating and responding thoughtfully to the other side. But influence in those moments depends less on how forcefully a position is stated (or restated in different ways), and more on whether others feel heard and understood. When people feel understood, they are far more open to moving toward a workable solution.

That’s where inquiry comes in.

The distinction between advocacy and inquiry has been explored in organizational psychology and leadership research. At its simplest:

• Advocacy is about making one’s thinking visible to others.
• Inquiry is about understanding what others are thinking and feeling.

Both matter. The problem arises when one is overused at the expense of the other.

Lawyers tend to default to advocacy. Under pressure, advocacy can slide into over-advocacy. Talking more. Talking loudly. Listening less. Focusing on being right. Inquiry, by contrast, requires slowing down and staying curious, even when time is tight or the stakes are high.

How to inquire without interrogating

Inquiry doesn’t mean backing off a position or being passive. It means being intentional about how questions are asked and why they are asked. Here are some tips for effective inquiry.

1. Ask questions to learn, not to lead
Leave leading questions for cross-examinations. If the goal is simply to get the answer you want to hear, people will feel it. Questions such as, “Don’t you think…?” or “Wouldn’t it make more sense if…?” are not inquiry. They’re advocacy in disguise.

Instead, broad, open-ended questions invite perspective. “What’s driving your thinking here?” Or, “What feels most important in this decision?” Or, sometimes, a simple statement works best: “Tell me more.”

2. Stay present long enough to hear the answer
Inquiry only works if you actually listen to the reply. Notice how often you ask a question while you’re already mentally preparing for your next response. We’re all guilty of doing it, but that habit shuts down real understanding.

The solution is simple. Slow down and listen with genuine curiosity about what the other person is trying to convey, not just what you expect to hear. That’s often where the most useful information lives. Inquiry doesn’t guarantee the answer you want. But it often gives you the answer you need to move the conversation forward.

3. Understanding doesn’t require agreement
Understanding another person’s perspectives does not mean agreeing with them. But when people feel understood, they are far more open to hearing a different point of view.

It is possible to say, “I don’t agree, but I understand how you’re thinking about it.”

4. Be explicit about your inquiry
Sometimes the most effective inquiry is named directly. Saying something like, “I want to understand how you’re thinking about this,” or, “Help me understand what’s driving your perspective,” can lower defensiveness and make the conversation more collaborative than oppositional.

5. Inquiry makes advocacy stronger
Here’s the irony. Asking better questions often makes people more effective advocates, not weaker ones. Understanding what drives others, including their priorities, concerns, and constraints, helps connect your message to what matters to them. As a result, responses tend to land better and move the conversation forward more efficiently. It also reduces the risk of talking more while accomplishing less.

Final Thought

Lawyers do not need less advocacy. They need better balance. Inquiry will not weaken advocacy. If anything, it makes advocacy smarter.

The next time the urge is to push harder, it’s worth pausing to ask yourself: Do I really understand how the other person is seeing this? If not, a few well-placed questions can make all the difference.

What do you think about giving it a try?

 

 

Lori Berman, Ph.D., is an organizational psychologist and Vice President of Learning at Legal Innovators, a talent management solution for law firms and corporate legal departments. She is co-author of Accelerating Lawyer Success: How to Make Partner, Stay Healthy, and Flourish in a Law Firm. Reach her at [email protected].