Appearing rude or arrogant is something we lawyers need to guard against. The temptations are many. At how many Christmas parties this year will you walk by a group and hear someone make a patently ridiculous statement about a legal matter? The temptation to stop and correct is strong, but if you do, those people will just think something negative about you. New lawyers and experienced lawyers often have difficult relations in negotiations as the young lawyer thinks "this old guy hasn’t kept up on changes in the law" while the experienced lawyer thinks "they may have taught you that in that fancy law school, but Judge Whitehead isn’t going to rule that way." It becomes easy for either side to view the other as arrogant.
I got a kick out of Oklahoma City lawyer Douglas Sorocco’s post "Blackballed – You are the Brand" about how one rude lawyer got her entire firm blackballed from possibly representing a Fortune 100 client. Too bad she’ll probably never see Doug’s post about her.