You’re facing a commercial dispute. A shareholder conflict, a contract breach, a tax assessment that’s gone sideways. The stress is mounting, and you need a lawyer.
Someone recommends a firm with a big name. Someone else suggests a barrister known for being a “head kicker”. You meet with both. The first has a corner office and quotes a premium rate. The second promises to be aggressive, to really take the fight to the other side.
And without realising it, you make a decision based on assumptions about strength that might actually work against you.
Key Takeaways
- Perceived strength versus actual strength: The qualities that make lawyers appear powerful (aggression, size of firm, high fees) are often unrelated to effectiveness, and sometimes actively harmful
- The David and Goliath lesson: When you remove the assumption of hand-to-hand combat, the underdog with the right weapon and a clear plan was always going to win
- Gender bias costs clients outcomes: Female lawyers are denied briefs because clients assume male lawyers are stronger negotiators, yet research shows experienced female negotiators outperform men when representing others
- Stress amplifies bias: The emotionally charged environment of dispute resolution is exactly when rational decision-making escapes us, and we default to society’s surface-level markers of strength
- The inverted U-shaped curve: Beyond a certain point, more resources, more aggression, or higher fees don’t improve outcomes, they can reverse them
- Ask the right questions: Does this lawyer understand my objectives? Is there a plan? Am I being helped to make decisions? These matter more than office size or bluster
The way we understand strength in litigation is often misguided by unconscious bias. Certain lawyers are preferred over others. Certain firms are preferred over others. But whilst the assumptions that underpin some of these preferences pervade industries beyond the law, it seems that through the often stressful and emotionally charged environment of dispute resolution, there is a heightened risk of failing to interrogate our decision-making.
This doesn’t just perpetuate inequities. It leads to ineffective outcomes for you.
What the Story of David and Goliath Actually Reveals About Strength
Most of us think we know the story of David and Goliath. It’s become shorthand for an improbable victory, the underdog defeating the giant against all odds.
But when you look closer at what actually happened 3,000 years ago in the Valley of Elah, the story reveals something uncomfortable about how we assess strength. And those same warped perceptions show up, over and over, when clients choose lawyers.
Here’s what happened.
Two armies faced each other across a valley in the Shephelah region of ancient Israel. The Philistines on one ridge, the Israelites on the other. Neither could attack without descending into the valley and climbing the opposite slope, completely exposed. It was a stalemate.
So the Philistines sent down their mightiest warrior to break the deadlock. A challenge: single combat, one champion from each side, winner takes all.
The warrior they sent was Goliath. A giant. Six foot nine in an era when the average man was closer to five feet. Outfitted head to toe in glittering bronze armour. Carrying a sword, a javelin, and a spear. Absolutely terrifying to look at.
No one from the Israelite side wanted to fight him. It looked like certain death.
The only person who stepped forward was a shepherd boy. Young, small, half Goliath’s size. He told King Saul he’d been defending his flock from lions and wolves for years using a sling, and he could do this.
Saul had no choice. He tried to give the boy his armour and sword. The boy refused. He’d never used that kind of equipment. Instead, he picked up five stones, put them in his shepherd’s bag, and walked down the slope.
Goliath saw him coming and taunted him. “Come to me so I can feed your flesh to the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the field.” He was insulted when he saw the boy carrying only a staff. “Am I a dog that you would come to me with sticks?”
The shepherd boy took one stone, placed it in his sling, whirled it around, and let it fly.
It hit Goliath between the eyes. The giant fell, either dead or unconscious. The boy ran forward, took Goliath’s own sword, and cut off his head. The Philistine army turned and ran.
The boy’s name was David.
Why We Misunderstand What Happened (And What It Means for Litigation)
We call David the underdog. We frame his victory as improbable. But when you strip away the assumptions, you realise something: David was always going to win.
Here’s why.
We mistake the relevant inputs for strength
Goliath had more armour, but it made him slower. He had more frightening weapons, but they were only useful within arm’s reach. His size, which seemed like his greatest advantage, may have been caused by a pituitary condition called acromegaly, a benign tumour that causes overproduction of growth hormone.
And acromegaly comes with a very specific side effect: profound vision problems. Double vision, severe nearsightedness, sometimes both.
Look back at the story with that in mind. Why did Goliath need an attendant to lead him onto the valley floor? Why did he move so slowly? Why was he so strangely oblivious to the fact that David wasn’t preparing for hand-to-hand combat? Why did he say “sticks”, plural, when David only carried one?
Because he couldn’t see clearly. The very thing that made him appear strong, his extraordinary size, was also the source of his greatest weakness.
David, by contrast, had exactly what was required to win. A sling wasn’t a child’s toy. It was a devastating weapon. When whirled at six or seven revolutions per second, it could propel a stone at roughly 35 metres per second, faster than a professional baseball pitcher’s fastball. The stones in the Valley of Elah were barium sulphate, twice the density of normal rocks. The stopping power was roughly equivalent to a.45 caliber handgun.
Experienced slingers could hit and kill targets at distances of up to 200 yards. From medieval records, we know they were accurate enough to hit birds in flight.
When David lined up and fired, he had every intention, and every expectation, of hitting Goliath between the eyes. And he did.
In ancient warfare, slingers were artillery. Goliath was heavy infantry. Time and time again throughout history, artillery was the decisive factor against infantry. David wasn’t the underdog. Goliath was outmatched from the start.
So why do we keep framing it as an upset?
Because we assess strength based on surface markers: size, armour, reputation. Not on what’s actually relevant to the fight at hand.
What looks like strength on the surface can be the very thing that makes someone ineffective. And what looks like weakness can be exactly the right tool for the job.
In litigation, this same mistake happens constantly
A client requests a lawyer who will be a “head kicker”. Someone aggressive. Someone who’ll really take the fight to the other side.
But here’s what that usually means in practice: a lawyer who bashes the table to try and achieve a result is invariably masking a lack of thought and effort. The more aggressive, bombastic, outrage-filled, condescending, or just plain rude a position is put, the less substance sits underneath it.
And if a lawyer’s job is to persuade, either persuade the other side to settle or persuade a judge or tribunal member, how exactly does condescension improve the chances of success? It doesn’t. It entrenches positions. It makes resolution harder.
Aggression isn’t strength in litigation. It’s noise. And noise is what you get when someone doesn’t have a plan.
The most powerful weapon a lawyer has in any dispute is a simple, cogent argument supported by evidence, delivered in a respectful and modest manner. The more effective lawyer is the one who is precise, forensic, analytic, and thoughtful.
In the arena of the legal system, the person with those qualities should win every time.
So why do clients still choose the loud one?
We extend the relationship between strength and performance beyond sense
If we hold subconscious perceptions about strength, we also extend our expectations of their impact on performance beyond reality.
Higher price must mean better lawyer. A firm with more resources must be more likely to win. A barrister with a fearsome reputation must be more effective.
But there’s a point where more stops equalling better. Malcolm Gladwell calls this the “inverted U-shaped curve”. Beyond a certain threshold, more of a seemingly good thing can have the reverse effect.
A larger system can become harder to navigate, slower to respond, less collaborative in solving problems. A solution formed too quickly may lack the investigation and understanding required to ensure its quality. A higher price may subconsciously prevent you from questioning the advice you’re receiving, because surely if you’re paying this much, it must be right.
Think about what you actually need from a lawyer in a dispute. You need someone who understands your objectives. Someone who can identify the three or four issues that will actually decide your case. Someone who has a clear plan for how to tackle those issues. Someone who keeps you informed and helps you make decisions.
None of those things require a corner office or an intimidating demeanour. In fact, the trappings of traditional “strength” can sometimes get in the way.
Can you articulate, right now, what the key issues are in your dispute? Can your lawyer explain them to you in 30 seconds, elevator pitch style?
If you can, you’re already ahead. If you can’t, something needs recalibrating.
The right lawyer won’t just handle your case. They’ll give you clarity about what matters, what the plan is, and what success looks like. Clarity is the most powerful tool you can take into any dispute.
How Gender Bias Warps Perceptions of Strength in Legal Disputes
This is where the relationship between perceived strength and actual performance becomes most discomforting.
Male lawyer equals more likely to be aggressive equals more power equals more effective.
That’s the unconscious chain of reasoning. And it’s costing clients better outcomes.
The data on gender bias in Australian law
According to the Law Council’s 2014 National Attrition and Re-engagement Study (NARS), female barristers are “more likely than other females to report experiencing discrimination due to gender” and reported “being denied briefs because clients preferred male counsel.”
Let that sit for a moment. Clients, facing high-stakes disputes, are choosing lawyers based on gender because they assume male lawyers are stronger, more assertive, more effective negotiators.
But is that assumption accurate?
What the research actually shows about negotiation performance
A comprehensive study published by the American Psychological Association tested whether women are genuinely worse negotiators than men. The findings were nuanced.
In business negotiations where individuals negotiate for themselves, women do tend to perform slightly worse than men on average. The reasons are complex and tied to social conditioning, expectations, and backlash effects when women display assertiveness.
But here’s the critical finding: when you compare experienced and well-informed negotiators, and you put them in the position of negotiating on behalf of someone else, women outperform men.
Read that again. When women negotiate as representatives, as advocates, as lawyers acting for a client, they are more effective than their male counterparts.
So clients who refuse to brief female barristers because they assume a male barrister will be a stronger negotiator are making a choice that is not just discriminatory, it’s objectively counterproductive.
They’re choosing Goliath’s armour when they need David’s sling.
The assumption that male lawyers are more effective in disputes isn’t just unfair. It’s demonstrably wrong when you look at how experienced advocates actually perform. Choosing a lawyer based on gender bias is choosing based on the wrong inputs for strength.
Why Dispute Resolution Amplifies Bias (And How to Fight It)
You might be thinking: “I’m a rational person. I wouldn’t fall for these biases.”
But here’s the thing. Disputes don’t happen when everything is calm and clear. They happen when something has gone wrong. A partner has breached your trust. The ATO has issued an assessment you can’t afford to pay. A customer is refusing to pay for work you’ve completed.
You’re stressed. You’re anxious. You’re facing an uncertain outcome that could materially affect your business or your wealth.
And that emotional state is exactly when rational decision-making escapes us. It’s when we fall back on societal defaults, on surface-level markers of strength, on what feels safe rather than what’s actually effective.
Choosing a lawyer is often the first decision you make in a dispute, and it’s the least informed. You don’t yet know what the issues are. You don’t know what kind of lawyer you need. You’re making the choice in a fog of uncertainty.
That’s the perfect environment for bias to take over.
The questions you should be asking instead
When you engage a lawyer, the impressions you form about them should not replace the questions you ought to be asking.
Does this lawyer understand my objectives and priorities? Is there a plan for resolving my dispute? What is included in the price, and am I being helped to understand it? Am I being informed enough to be involved in decisions?
Am I dealing with David, or Goliath?
Those are the questions that matter. Not: does this firm have an impressive office? Not: does this lawyer sound aggressive enough? Not: is this barrister male?
Without this kind of consideration, the more common choices, the ones that our biases enable, remain at the surface. The giant’s weaknesses go undetected. The underdog’s victory remains a surprise.
What effective looks like in practice
Think about the Valley of Elah again. David had a plan. He knew exactly what weapon he needed. He knew Goliath’s vulnerable spot. He had practised his craft for years defending his flock.
He wasn’t louder than Goliath. He wasn’t bigger. He wasn’t wearing more impressive armour.
But he had clarity about what needed to happen, and he had the right tool for the job.
That’s what you need from a lawyer. Not someone who promises to be a “warrior” or a “fighter”. Someone who can explain, with sharp clarity: “These are the issues that will decide your case, and this is how we’re tackling them.”
Someone who has thought deeply about your situation, identified what actually matters, and built a strategy around the essential, not around everything.
If a lawyer can’t explain your dispute strategy to you in plain language within the first meeting, that’s a warning sign. Complexity should be clarified, not amplified. The best lawyers make the complicated clear, they don’t hide behind jargon or bluster.
The Cost of Inaction: What Happens When You Choose Wrong
Let’s be clear about what’s at stake when you make a lawyer choice based on the wrong markers of strength.
You waste money. Aggressive lawyers who lack substance tend to escalate disputes unnecessarily, racking up legal costs on both sides without moving closer to resolution.
You waste time. Disputes that could have been resolved efficiently drag on because the lawyer you chose prioritised posturing over strategy.
You damage relationships. In commercial disputes, particularly shareholder conflicts or partnership breakdowns, relationships that could have been preserved are burned because someone chose the “head kicker” over the problem solver.
And you add unnecessary stress to an already difficult situation. Litigation is hard enough when you have a clear plan and a lawyer who’s helping you make informed decisions. It’s unbearable when you’re wandering through fog, stumbling from one procedural step to another with no sense of where you’re heading.
The giants are not as strong as they seem. And sometimes, the shepherd has exactly what you need in their pocket.
How to Choose a Lawyer Based on Actual Strength
So what does actual strength look like when you’re choosing a lawyer for a commercial dispute?
Specialist expertise that’s been tested
Look for a lawyer who only litigates. Someone who’s spent their career in the courtroom, in tribunals, in mediations. Not someone who does a bit of litigation on the side alongside transactional work.
David spent years defending his flock with a sling. He didn’t pick it up the day before he faced Goliath.
Rigorous focus on what’s essential
The right lawyer will cut through the noise and tell you what actually matters. Not every issue in your dispute is equally important. Not every piece of evidence is equally persuasive.
A lawyer who tries to litigate every possible issue is like Goliath carrying a hundred pounds of armour. Slow, cumbersome, unable to adapt.
A lawyer who identifies the two or three things that will decide your case and builds a strategy around them is like David with his sling. Precise. Focused. Effective.
Transparency and partnership
You should feel like your lawyer is working with you, not doing something to you. That means clear explanations. Regular updates. Honest assessments of risk and opportunity.
If you feel like you’re being kept in the dark, or if you’re receiving advice you don’t fully understand but feel pressured to accept because of the lawyer’s reputation or fee level, something is wrong.
The ability to explain complex issues simply
This is a litmus test. If a lawyer can’t explain your dispute to you in plain language, they probably don’t understand it well enough themselves.
The best litigators are also the best teachers. They take complexity and make it clear. They give you frameworks you can understand and apply.
If you’re walking away from meetings more confused than when you went in, you’re dealing with the wrong person.
True expertise doesn’t need to hide behind jargon or aggression. A lawyer who genuinely knows their craft can explain your dispute, your options, and your pathway forward in a way that makes sense to you. That’s the marker of strength that matters.
The Path Forward: Making Smarter Choices in Disputes
Disputes are never easy. They’re stressful, uncertain, and often expensive.
But the pathway through them shouldn’t feel like wandering through fog.
When you choose a lawyer based on the right markers of strength, clarity, focus, expertise, transparency, the process becomes manageable. You understand what’s happening. You’re involved in decisions. You have a plan.
When you choose based on surface-level markers, size of firm, aggression, gender, reputation for being a “warrior”, you’re rolling the dice. You might get lucky. But you’re far more likely to end up with someone who looks impressive but lacks the right weapon for the fight you’re actually in.
Think back to the Valley of Elah one more time.
The Israelites on the ridge looking down at Goliath thought he was an extraordinarily powerful foe. What they didn’t understand was that the very thing that was the source of his apparent strength was also the source of his greatest weakness.
And David, the small shepherd boy with nothing but a sling, had exactly what was needed to win.
Giants are not as strong and powerful as they seem.
And sometimes, the person who looks like the underdog has been preparing for this fight their whole career.
Disclaimer: This article provides general information about perceptions of strength in legal disputes and factors to consider when choosing a lawyer. It does not constitute legal advice. Every dispute is different, and decisions about legal representation should be made based on your specific circumstances. If you’re facing a commercial or tax dispute and would like to discuss your situation with a litigation specialist, contact Aptum Legal.
