Checklists

At a recent CLE, Charlotte defense attorney Chris Fialko mentioned that he's been enjoying Atul Gawande's book The Checklist Manifesto. Chris is a pretty sharp guy, and I had a plane trip coming up, so I bought the book and read it. I liked it too, and thought it had a few lessons for criminal lawyers. We don't do a lot of book reviews on the blog -- actually, we've never done one -- but this seemed consistent with the mission of the blog, so here goes. First off, here's the publisher's synopsis of the book: The modern world has given us stupendous know-how. Yet avoidable failures continue to plague us in health care, government, the law, the financial industry—in almost every realm of organized activity. And the reason is simple: the volume and complexity of knowledge today has exceeded our ability as individuals to properly deliver it to people—consistently, correctly, safely. We train longer, specialize more, use ever-advancing technologies, and still we fail. Atul Gawande makes a compelling argument that we can do better, using the simplest of methods: the checklist. In riveting stories, he reveals what checklists can do, what they can’t, and how they could bring about striking improvements in a variety of fields, from medicine and disaster recovery to professions and businesses of all kinds. Despite the reference to "the law" in the above blurb, the book doesn't talk much about the law. Gawande talks about flying planes, construction, and other tasks in which checklists have well-established [...]