Richmond's Trial Lawyer Podcast

“We feel first, then decide accordingly.”

“I have said I have no quarrel with the intellect. These words were born of it. I simply do not wish the head to rule every aspect of the human experience, nor feelings to be reduced to some unsavory attachment to the person, something akin to original sin. Moreover, I am not a fan of flabby sentimentality that by its excessiveness mocks honest feeling. But be assured—despite all their protests to the contrary—the decisions of most power persons are rooted in the very feeling they deny. A simple and universal process is at work. We feel first, then decide accordingly. Our decision may be wrong. It can even be spiteful or evil, and we will announce our decision only after we have smeared it with the stuff of the left lobe—with brain-laden, unemotional, cold, linear reasoning. The feeling came first and it was at the feeling level that the decision was made.”

-Gerry Spence

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