Melanie Bragg: Defining Moments-Insights into the Lawyer’s Soul

Melanie Bragg in her latest American Bar Association Flagship book Defining Moments: Insight into the Lawyer’s Soul will tell you that a person’s character is revealed in testing situations. Melanie also a lawyer earned the trust of her peers who candidly revealed their defining moments. Their accounts go beyond making choices that put them on the right side of the (moral) law; these were defining moments that shaped their futures.

In the interview excerpt below Melanie tells of her own defining moment. You’ll be heartened to know that people like her still walk this earth.

Melanie Bragg Interview Part1

Melanie Bragg Interview Part2

This book is particularly relevant in today’s challenging economic climate; there comes a time in everyone’s career or business dealings where the temptation to take the path of least resistance beckons, the pay off appears irresistible especially when it is coupled with the vision of an easy future if they’d do it just this once they tell themselves.

However, there are those who choose to do the right thing because they are clear about their personal values. Want more examples? In the case of John McKay a former US Attorney for the Western District of Washington and a President Reagan appointed White House Fellow, it hurt his prospects at that time. McKay’s success principle of “telling the truth no matter what” i.e. his lone voice upholding the Constitution in the face of civil liberties violations resulted in a truncated career. The upside as we all agree is that every day McKay can look himself in the eye; and a new academic career as Law Professor at Seattle University School of Law isn’t bad either.

To order your copy of Defining Moments: Insights into the Lawyer’s Soul go to www.melaniebragg.com

Melanie Bragg is a lawyer, speaker, educator and champion advocate of the defenseless in our society. She is currently the Chair of the Book Publications Board of the American Bar Association Solo, Small Firm Division, with over 30,000 members and 40 authors under her guidance and leadership. Her record of leadership in her profession and community is long.  She became the first woman president of the Houston Young Lawyers Association and was a director of the ABA Young Lawyers Division. Through her company, Legal Insight she has written, produced, and distributed legal education programs for the healthcare industry to universities and medical schools nationwide.   Her first ABA book was HIPAA for the General Practictioner.