Law Department Management Blog
A widely applied psychometric test is usually widely known as Myers-Briggs. (I am an ENTJ, if you want to know.) Understanding style differences can help managers significantly.
I do not know whether data exists to compare MBTI (Type Instrument) scores of private practitioners to those of in-house attorneys. But research has been published about generic lawyers’ scores. How do lawyers compare to other adults in the United States?
Here is some data from cherylstephens.com/professional/ABA-MBTIcharts.pdf.
- 75% of adults prefer Extraversion, whereas 43% of lawyers do
- 70% of adults prefer Sensing, 57% of lawyers.
- 60% of men and 35% of women prefer Thinking over Feeling (remember, these are not evaluative terms, they are descriptive). Of lawyers, 81% of the males and 61% of the females prefer the Thinking style
- 55% of adults prefer Judging, whereas 63% of lawyers do.
In sum, setting aside differences between men and women (which show most prominently in the Thinking/Feeling type differences), lawyers – as compared to the general population — tend more often to draw their energy internally rather than from other people, to see larger patterns rather than specific facts, to rely on rational logic rather than values, and to come to conclusions.