Every person has their own subjective reality depending on knowledge, life experience and even the quality of their morning cup of tea. Many of us don't even think about it, continuing to live life as by settings, stepping on the rake of cognitive biases - law firms aren`t an exception. But our superskill - thinking out of the box is in the blood! What we can do about cognitive bias -  that's what we're going to discuss today!

Law of Triviality or Bicycle-shed Effect

We all have our favourite “Roman Empire”, don't we? Ours one is the Law of Triviality. There are so many real-life examples, which say it works and help to understand the reality. Think back to a recent meeting in your team to discuss the project, and how much time did the team spend discussing easy-to-understand issues related to the project? And how much time is spent discussing more important and much more complex tasks? If your team spends more time discussing minor issues, then congratulations, your team has become a victim of the Law of Triviality!

Why does this happen? 

Scientists have several answers to this question. The first is that there may be many more experts in building a bicycle shed in a team than there are experts in building a nuclear reactor on the team. And as we all know, experts want to implement their own ideas where they are competent. The second answer is that making a simple decision requires a person to allocate few resources to search for information, analyse it and actually implement it, while a complex decision requires significant resources.

What about lawyers? 

They’re also prone to this bias, especially when they’re working on a project in a team. There's not much you can do about it - simple solutions require fewer resources, but that's life. Lack of management and training for team members can lead to missed deadlines and increased project costs.

At Icon.Partners, we know all too well the dangers of turning a blind eye to the Law of Triviality. That's why we:

•  Make our team of different level lawyers - junior team members can focus on simple tasks within the project, freeing up time for seniors to work on more complex tasks.

• Our legal team leaders know how to avoid the Bicycle-Shed Effect, which means we'll meet our deadlines!

Bandwagon Effect

Next, we'll look at another interesting cognitive bias. This bias also has a fairly straightforward explanation: people do certain things because that becomes popular and spread among more and more people. At the same time, this choice isn't influenced by their own beliefs. It's a kind of trend chasing! There are lots of examples of this. For instance, people vote for the candidate they think has the best chance of winning (the media will tell you who has the best chance, ironically), or they buy crypto as soon as they can because more and more people are buying it.

Why does it exist? 

There are a few reasons why this bias exists, according to scientists. For example, this effect stems from the pressure a group of people exerts on the individual (do like everyone else or you will be considered as a deviant), or the fear of losing what everyone else has. Or it might be that this effect just makes it easier for a person to reduce the cost of resources when making a decision (make a quick decision or die).

What about lawyers? 

If you don't understand or ignore this bias, it definitely affects decision-making in the legal team and the law firm. Chasing a trend without looking into it properly can have negative consequences because rash decisions are made. It seems that lots of lawyers and law firms are keen to get AI up and running in their operations as soon as they can, particularly for things like drafting legal advice, contracts, and lawsuits. But have any of them stopped to think about data protection and confidentiality? Rhetorical question, relax.

At Icon.Partners, we don't do that. We set the standards for the modern legal industry. We get how the Bandwagon Effect affects decision-making at the company level and in our legal teams. That is why our decision-making is preceded by a comprehensive analysis of the subject matter and expert discussion, but not by blindly following current trends.

Planning Fallacy

The next bias on our menu is the Planning Fallacy. What exactly is it? Scientists say that it is a person's tendency to optimistically estimate the resources needed to perform a task in the future. However, during such an assessment, for some reason, a person doesn't take into account their own experience of performing similar tasks in the past. Meanwhile, scientists say, external observer usually demonstrates a tendency to overestimate the need for resources to complete a task by another person (example with the the boss).

Why do we have such a type of thinking? 

Why don't we consider what we've learned from past experience? Scientists are still looking for answers to these questions, but there are already some findings. For example, it is believed that the reason for this bias is a person's desire to have a task completed quickly and easily. In addition, people can make simple mistakes when trying to recall the amount of time they spent on similar tasks in the past. Scientists also believe that people make such optimistic estimates to create a favourable impression on others.

Perspective of lawyers

Failure to fulfill the deadline for completing the task and an increase in the service cost are the results of the Planning fallacy: 

• Lawyer should have a good memory, but don't rely on it alone when planning tasks - this also applies to the legal team;  has someone new joined the team? Or did someone leave?

• It's the team leader's job to make sure that all the info is stored so that they can use past data to plan how many resources they'll need to get tasks done in the future.

I bet you're wondering how Icon.Partners tackles this bias. Here's the answer! The truth is, it's pretty straightforward. Our lawyers use appropriate tools that allow us to gather info about how long certain tasks take. This info helps legal team leaders figure out how long a task will take in the future. 

Still relying on your own memory? - Better call Icon.Partners or fill the form for the initial free session.

Anchoring Effect

Now let us introduce you the Anchoring Effect! This is a bias that means that people are prone to make decisions or form judgements based on a reference point, the so-called “anchor,” which can be completely irrelevant. It's thought that when people make decisions, they start with an anchor and then make minor adjustments based on additional information. This gives the anchor a significant influence on the decision that's made.

Scientists debate that…

• person's binding to the anchor occurs because such an anchor looks sufficiently reliable not to be rejected immediately,

• person's tendency to this bias is explained by experience and personal qualities (friendly, conscientious and open to new experiences are more prone to this bias, while extroverts are less so),

• Anchoring Effect is more likely to occur in people who are feeling down, so try to smile and not give up.

  
  

Lawyers experience

The time, lawyers were one of the categories that was specifically researched as part of the Anchoring Effect study. The researchers found that even experienced lawyers are prone to this bias. For instance, the professional lawyers who took part in the study, used a random anchor (type of judicial sentencing decision) when deciding on a sentence during the preparation of a judgement, even when this anchor was determined by them using a set of loaded dice. What a ridiculous situation!

Of course, you, dear reader, want to know how Icon.Partners lawyers deal with this bias in practice. We think the best way to get along with this brain bug is to understand it and keep it in mind all the time. So, when our lawyers are working on your task, they keep their finger on the pulse, know the risks of anchoring, and comprehensively study the task in depth before making a decision.

Observer-Expectancy Effect

And the last one but not the least is the Observer-Expectancy Effect, which:

•  Explain the phenomenon whereby the researcher's cognitive biases affect them to subconsciously influence the participants in an experiment without them realising it

• Leads to the researcher misinterpreting the results due to the tendency to look for information that conforms to their hypothesis and overlook information that refutes it

• Explains the researcher influencing the participants of the experiment to create the desired characteristics that affect them and change the results of the experiments themselves

But don't worry, because the double-blind experimental design gets around this cognitive bias every time!

Thanks for reading this far, we'd like to congratulate you on that!

And also note that you probably fell victim to our cognitive biases, who knows, but we welcome you here, in our tribe! Icon.Partners tribe is mindful about our cognitions and their effect on the work.