Who knew lawyers have such moral scruples? According to research by business school faculty members at Toronto, Harvard and Northwestern universities, lawyers approach networking with absolute dread because they feel guilty that they are doing it for purely selfish reasons.
Here’s how the study’s authors describe their findings in Harvard Business Review:
When we studied 165 lawyers at a large North American law firm, for example, we found that their success depended on their ability to network effectively both internally (to get themselves assigned to choice clients) and externally (to bring business into the firm). Those who regarded these activities as distasteful and avoided them had fewer billable hours than their peers.
