Dr. No #70 – Why Smart Lawyers Keep Making Dumb Decisions

Hey lawyer,

I’ve been thinking about something uncomfortable.

Most of the bad decisions I see in Legal are not made by juniors.
They’re made by very smart people.
With excellent CVs.
And perfect logic.

Which is exactly the problem.

1) Food for Thought

When was the last time your intelligence got in the way of making a good decision?

Not because you didn’t know enough.
But because you knew too much — and trusted it blindly.

2) The Big Idea — The Intelligence Trap (David Robson)

David Robson’s book asks a brutal question:

Why do intelligent people so often make terrible decisions?

The answer is not lack of IQ.
It’s how intelligence behaves under pressure.

Three ideas from the book every GC should tattoo somewhere discreet.

A) Smart people defend ideas, not outcomes

The smarter you are, the better you are at justifying your position.

You don’t ask, “Is this right?”
You ask, “How do I explain why I’m right?”

In Legal, this shows up as:

• Endless memos defending a weak position

• Winning the argument and losing the deal

• Being correct and irrelevant at the same time

GC takeaway:
If you can explain a decision beautifully but can’t change it when facts change, your intelligence has turned into armor.

B) Confidence kills learning

Robson shows that high performers often stop updating their thinking.

Why?
Because admitting doubt feels like lowering status.

So instead of learning, they rationalize.

“I’ve seen this before.”
“This always works.”
“We tried that years ago.”

And then reality arrives. Loudly.

GC takeaway:
The best legal leaders don’t sound confident all the time.
They sound curious.

C) Intelligence increases blind spots

Here’s the paradox:

The more expertise you have, the harder it is to see outside your mental model.

You spot legal risks faster.
But you miss second-order effects.
You miss incentives.
You miss human behavior.

Robson calls this cognitive entrenchment.

GC takeaway:
The smartest legal advice often comes from someone who understands law and psychology, incentives, operations, and money.

Not just statutes.

3) Mental Model — The Outside View

Instead of asking:
“How do we think this will go?”

Ask:
“How does this usually go in the real world?”

Look at base rates.
Past cases.
Other companies.
Other failures.

Your inside view feels smart.
The outside view saves careers.

Great GCs learn to step outside their own intelligence.

4) AI Booster — Levelr

Levelr extracts crystal-clear speech from any audio.

Why this matters for GCs:

• You hear what was actually said, not what you assumed

• You catch hesitation, tone, uncertainty

• You reduce memory bias after long meetings

Concrete use case:
Record a board or executive call. Or even a podcast.
Re-listen the next day.
Spot what you missed while defending your position.

Wisdom starts with listening twice.

5) Quote to Reflect

“The fool thinks himself wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
— William Shakespeare

Still undefeated.

Some decisions fail not because Legal is wrong —
but because Legal is alone.

Pharma is a perfect example:
Packaging and labelling rules.
OTC advertising.
Pharmacovigilance.
Product safety.
Health data.
Multi-country launches.

If you don’t live in that complexity every day, intelligence won’t save you.

This is exactly when clients call us.

Ambar plugs in fractional senior pharma counsel:

• No fixed cost

• No learning curve

• No internal politics

• Just judgment when it matters

Call me if this resonates.

That’s it for today.

Stay cool
— Dr. No