what is a lawyer black swan

This ‘black swan

’ problem is that the legal profession’s definition of what it means to be a lawyer is equivalent of defining a swan as being white. So long as the profession focuses on the white swan (a legacy image of a lawyer and lawyering) the profession will be blind to other ways of being a legal professional.

Full Answer

What is a black swan?

A black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences.

What is the black swan problem?

Such events, considered extreme outliers, collectively play vastly larger roles than regular occurrences. More technically, in the scientific monograph 'Silent Risk', Taleb mathematically defines the black swan problem as "stemming from the use of degenerate metaprobability ".

What is Thomas Taleb's Black Swan?

Taleb's black swan is different from the earlier philosophical versions of the problem, specifically in epistemology, as it concerns a phenomenon with specific empirical and statistical properties which he calls, "the fourth quadrant".

Who was the first person to see a black swan?

In that context, a black swan was impossible or at least nonexistent. However, in 1697, Dutch explorers led by Willem de Vlamingh became the first Europeans to see black swans, in Western Australia.

What does it mean to call something a black swan?

What Is a Black Swan? A black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences.

What is an example of a black swan event?

Examples Taleb gives of black swan events include the rise of the Internet, the personal computer, World War I, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. He underscores the point that the black swan event depends upon the observer.

What does black swan mean in finance?

A black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences.

Where does the term black swan come from?

In other words, black swan events are events that are unexpected and unknowable. The term was popularized by former Wall Street trader Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who wrote about the concept in his 2001 book Fooled by Randomness.

Are black swans negative?

Taleb writes that there are two categories of human undertaking: ones where uncertainty is beneficial (positive Black Swans) and ones where uncertainty is harmful (negative Black Swans). You need to be able to tell the difference between these two categories, especially if you are creating or investing in businesses.

What is a GREY swan event?

Grey swan is a term used to describe a potentially very significant event whose possible occurrence may be predicted beforehand but whose probability is considered small. In other words, it is a risk with a potentially large impact but a low perceived likelihood of happening.

What is black swan strategy?

The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight.

What is a black swan in negotiation?

What Is a Black Swan in a Negotiation? Black swans are pieces of innocuous information that, if revealed, can change the course of a negotiation. In many ways, negotiation is all about finding the black swans. To discover them, you must open your mind, maintain endless curiosity, and be on the lookout for surprises.

How do you handle black swan events?

In summary, in coping with a Black Swan event, we should not attempt to predict it, but to build robustness against negative ones that occur and exploit positive ones . It is possible to prepare, if we focus on preparing for the impact .

Is black swan a compliment?

I have finally read Nassim Nicholas Taleb's “The Black Swan”. It is a thought-provoking book, which is a sincere compliment.

What is black swan in military?

The Black Swans (Bosnian: Crni labudovi) was a special forces unit within the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was a Patriotic League unit formed in 1992 in Sapna, under the 2nd Corps (later 1st Corps) which eventually numbered 800 men. It earned a reputation for battlefield bravery.

Does black swan exist?

The black swan (Cygnus atratus) is a large waterbird, a species of swan which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. Within Australia, the black swan is nomadic, with erratic migration patterns dependent upon climatic conditions. It is a large bird with mostly black plumage and a red bill.

What's the practical message for lawyers thinking about delving into solo practice?

So what’s the practical message for lawyers thinking about delving into solo practice? That they should be wary of contingency fee work unless they have not just the ability to fund the case, but the ability to fund the cases for years — while also paying their office expenses and themselves — in the event their other revenue dries up or their expenses explode. Young lawyers with a solo practice are probably better off limiting themselves to contingency cases with minimal costs and referring the rest to a firm big enough to utilize the law of large numbers.

Why do trial lawyers make so much money?

The reason the trial lawyer firms’ revenue follows such nice probabilities is because they have hundreds of cases, many filed years ago and thus ripe for settlement or judgment in the current year. For their portfolios, the law of large numbers applies: so long as the lawyer has done a good job of selecting and prosecuting cases — i.e., so that they turn a profit on cases more often than they don’t — they’ll rarely end up in the situation where they have a string of major losses without any victories to offset the expenses.

What is a black swan?

A “black swan” is an event with a very low probability of occurrence that produces catastrophic outcomes when it does occur. Retired New York University professor and former derivatives trader Nassim Taleb popularized the term in his book by the same name: “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable.”.

How does the Black Swan theory help investors?

Understanding black swan theory can help investors protect themselves by encouraging them to follow fundamental investing principles.

What is the black swan theory?

The general premise of black swan theory is that unpredictable events can have severe economic or financial market consequences. Importantly, events can be unpredictable due to an accumulation of similar and repetitive experiences.

When did the black swans first appear?

We tend to see clear explanations for them after the fact—what we call retrospective predictability. Willem de Vlamingh discovered black swans in Australia in 1697. Since a black swan had not been previously observed, Europeans believed that all swans were white.

How did Sarao manipulate the market?

It is retrospectively predictable: Sarao had manipulated the market in his favor by mimicking demand with “spoof orders” and causing the crash. One lesson to take from black swan theory is that there are always unknowns that can affect financial markets.

What is a Black Swan?

Primarily used in finance, a black swan refers to rare, unexpected events that affect financial markets, such as the financial collapse of 2007-8.

What is a black swan in the money market?

A black swan in the money market is an article written by Taylor, J. B., & Williams, J. C. (2009) in the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics , 1 (1), 58-83. After the 2007 financial collapse, the spread between federal funds rate (overnight funds rate) and the interbank lending rate increased. The Federal Reserve Bank responded with several actions, including the Term Auction Facility (TAF). This article analyzes whether counterparty risk increased spread, and argues that the TAF had little effect on reducing it.

What is a black swan event?

In other words, black swan events are events that are unexpected and unknowable. The term was popularized by former Wall Street trader Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who wrote about the concept in his 2001 book Fooled by Randomness.

Is a black swan negative?

Understanding the Black Swan. Although black swan events seem to come with a negative connotation, the concept does not only apply to negative events. Whether the event is positive or negative depends on the perspective of the individual. For example, a disastrous day in the stock market. Stock Market The stock market refers to public markets ...

What is the black swan?

A black swan ( Cygnus atratus) in Australia. The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. The term is based on an ancient saying that presumed black swans did not exist – ...

Why is the black swan important?

When the phrase was coined, the black swan was presumed not to exist. The importance of the metaphor lies in its analogy to the fragility of any system of thought. A set of conclusions is potentially undone once any of its fundamental postulates is disproved.

Where did the word "black swan" come from?

The phrase "black swan" derives from a Latin expression; its oldest known occurrence is from the 2nd-century Roman poet Juvenal 's characterization in his Satire VI of something being " rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno " ("a rare bird in the lands and very much like a black swan").

What is the fourth quadrant of the black swan?

Taleb's black swan is different from the earlier philosophical versions of the problem, specifically in epistemology, as it concerns a phenomenon with specific empirical and statistical properties which he calls, "the fourth quadrant".

What does the triplet "Black Swans" mean?

A small number of Black Swans explains almost everything in our world, from the success of ideas and religions, to the dynamics of historical events, to elements of our own personal lives.

Who used the Black Swan fallacy?

Taleb notes that in the 19th century, John Stuart Mill used the black swan logical fallacy as a new term to identify falsification. Black swan events were discussed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2001 book Fooled By Randomness, which concerned financial events. His 2007 book The Black Swan extended the metaphor to events outside ...

Who was the first person to see a black swan?

However, in 1697, Dutch explorers led by Willem de Vlamingh became the first Europeans to see black swans, in Western Australia. The term subsequently metamorphosed to connote the idea that a perceived impossibility might later be disproven. Taleb notes that in the 19th century, John Stuart Mill used the black swan logical fallacy as a new term to identify falsification.

What Is A Black Swan?

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Understanding A Black Swan

Special Considerations

Examples of Past Black Swan Events