Legal work rewards excellence. But in practice, excellence looks very different from one attorney to the next. Deadlines collide, documentation piles up, pressure is constant. In that environment, understanding how you naturally work is a performance advantage.

At Steno, we started asking a simple question: why do great attorneys succeed in such different ways? Some excel at deep precedent analysis. Others thrive on systematic planning. Still others perform best under courtroom pressure or by connecting emotionally with judges, juries, and clients. Yet the legal profession lacked a shared language for discussing these approaches as equally valid paths to success.

We set out to build a framework that reflected how attorneys actually work: how they process information, respond to deadlines, and execute strategy under pressure. Something that helped attorneys build on their natural strengths rather than conform to a single idea of what “good lawyering” looks like.

The easy path would have been adapting an existing framework. Myers-Briggs for lawyers. Enneagram with legal terminology. StrengthsFinder, but make it about depositions. But none of that felt right. So we started from scratch.

Why Legal Practice Needs Its Own Framework

The legal profession has long used personality assessments like Myers-Briggs and the Caliper Profile to help attorneys understand themselves and their colleagues. These tools provide useful insights, but they measure personality traits, not work patterns. They tell you who you are, not how you work.

In legal practice, understanding how you work—how you process case information, respond to deadlines, and execute under pressure—is what allows you to build systems that actually improve performance. We needed archetypes grounded in the real rhythms of legal practice:

• The 11 PM pretrial preparation session
• The unexpected courtroom ruling
• The complex technical explanation to a confused client

The Architecture Behind the Archetypes

Working with Steno’s Joe Stephens—a legal technology expert, professor, and practicing public defender—we identified three core dimensions that consistently distinguish attorney work styles:

• Primary professional drivers, measuring what fundamentally energizes attorneys
• Responses to high-pressure situations, revealing whether someone performs best through advance preparation or real-time adaptation
• Preferred execution style, capturing how attorneys contribute their expertise in practice

As Joe put it: some attorneys win through preparation. Others win through adaptation. Both approaches work if the systems around them support it.

We adapted these dimensions from established psychological scales, but we translated them into legal scenarios attorneys immediately recognize: how a judge changes course mid-hearing, how responsibility shifts during trial preparation, how high pressure moments actually unfold in practice.

Mapping these dimensions together revealed four distinct work styles that reflect fundamentally different approaches to legal practice.

The Four Archetypes

Those four work styles became the foundation of our framework:

• The Research Commander builds unshakeable legal foundations through masterful research and precedent analysis.
• The Strategic Architect treats case management like a military operation, creating systems to manage complexity.
• The Courtroom Dynamo thrives under pressure, making quick strategic pivots in real time.
• The Narrative Weaver crafts compelling stories that resonate with human experience.

These aren’t arbitrary categories. They emerged from consistent patterns in how attorneys approach their work. Research Commanders tend to score high on precedent-focused drivers and preparation-heavy responses. Courtroom Dynamos prioritize experience-based drivers and adaptation-focused responses. The patterns were strong enough that legal professionals immediately recognized themselves and their colleagues.

Building the Assessment

Once we identified these work styles, we needed an assessment that could surface them reliably.

We built an 18-question assessment targeting specific archetype characteristics while drawing from validated psychological instruments. We used scenario-based questions because direct statements (“I am strategic”) don’t always lead to honest reflection.

Joe stress-tested each scenario against real-world practice. Does this actually happen? Would an attorney recognize themselves here? When something didn’t ring true, we revised it. Through this iterative process, we refined the assessment to ensure it captured real work patterns, not theoretical ideals.

The scoring system maps responses across all three dimensions. Each question contributes to one or more archetypes based on how strongly responses align with those patterns.

When you complete the assessment, your highest-scoring archetype becomes your primary work style, though the scoring also reveals secondary tendencies that show up in your results.

The result identifies primary work style preferences, not rigid categories. Most attorneys demonstrate elements of multiple styles depending on context. But understanding your primary style helps you optimize how you work and collaborate.

Why This Matters

Attorney Work Styles isn’t about labeling people. It’s about giving attorneys language to understand and leverage their natural approach to legal work.

When you understand your work style, you can build systems that amplify your strengths instead of working against them. Research Commanders can design comprehensive research workflows. Courtroom Dynamos can prepare in ways that preserve flexibility. Strategic Architects can develop planning frameworks that reduce uncertainty. Narrative Weavers can prioritize storytelling and client connection.

This understanding also improves collaboration. For example, pairing a Strategic Architect’s planning with a Courtroom Dynamo’s adaptability can create stronger trial preparation.

Most importantly, it affirms that different approaches all have value. The legal profession often privileges certain styles—the quick-thinking trial warrior, the brilliant legal scholar—but every archetype contributes something essential.

Some Early Findings

We’ve gathered preliminary data from several hundred assessment completions, including attorneys (60%) and paralegals/support staff (40%). The patterns are revealing.

Research Commander represents approximately 78% of all completions. Among attorneys, 74% identify as Research Commanders, followed by 13% Strategic Architects, 7% Courtroom Dynamos, and 6% Narrative Weavers. Paralegals and legal staff show an even stronger Research Commander affinity at 84%.

This skew likely reflects selection bias rather than true distribution. Attorneys willing to complete an 18-question assessment about work patterns tend to be systematic, thorough, and interested in frameworks, the same traits associated with Research Commanders. Courtroom Dynamos, meanwhile, may be too busy adapting in real time to stop for a quiz.

That suggests non–Research Commander styles may be underrepresented in professional development conversations, even though they’re essential to legal practice. Supporting that idea, attorneys show slightly higher affinity than paralegals for Courtroom Dynamo and Narrative Weaver, the archetypes most associated with real-time adaptation and audience connection.

In the coming weeks, we’ll continue analyzing the results. But the real value shows up in daily practice. That’s what made this worth building from scratch.

Curious about your attorney work style? Take the 4-minute assessment. Or reach out to share how you’re thinking about work styles and collaboration.