Professor Lipshaw

I am a law professor at Suffolk University Law School in Boston. Before that I spent twenty-six years as a lawyer and business executive in big law firms and big corporations.

I teach courses in the law of contracts, business associations, and entrepreneurship.

I write articles that are hard to put in particular boxes, but almost all of them have to do with big questions about how we process information about the world around and make practical decisions. I like to think that I approach it from the "inside-out" rather than the "outside-in." That means that I don't consider myself a behavioralist or observer of others. Rather, I like to think about the inner experience of coming to terms with difficult issues - what it is like to have the experience of making a decision. It's not quite like thinking and it's not quite like acting, but my conclusion is that it's a lot more like acting than thinking. Which means that I have some unusual views about the canard "thinking like a lawyer."

Beyond Legal Reasoning: A Critique of Pure Lawyering

'Jeffrey Lipshaw combines acute legal and philosophical analysis with prodigious legal experience to explain to us both how lawyers do think and how they should think. He makes clear why lawyering needs a fundamental transformation, and starts us down the path to achieving it. Anyone perplexed or angered by the role of lawyers and lawyering in modern society should read this book.'
Professor Barry Schwartz, author of "Why We Work" and co-author of "Practical Wisdom".
'Jeffrey Lipshaw draws on long experience, first in corporate legal practice, then in teaching, to offer a unique and invaluable guide to legal reasoning: its use in practice and, more importantly, its limits. I would advise all law students who are considering a career in transactional law to read it right away.'
Professor Brian Bix, University of Minnesota, USA.
'Professor Jeffrey Lipshaw, who practiced law for more than 26 years, has written a great and timely book—calling to mind Karl Llewellyn’s efforts to champion "the grand tradition" of law as against "the formal style." Lipshaw leads the reader to recognize that if lawyering is to have any real value, it must shed its narrow self-image as weaponized reason, and achieve self-awareness to understand its language within broader moral, social, and philosophical contexts. It must in short understand itself as not merely a technical profession, but a liberal arts vocation.
This is a distinctive and learned book with a breezy earnest style all its own. Law students should read this after the 1L year, lawyers and academics at any time, and judges right away.'
University Distinguished Professor Pierre Schlag, University of Colorado, USA