I dance – mostly ballet...and it’s something that I find so valuable. By: ELOISE SKINNER

I started dancing again a few years ago. I was a dancer when I was younger, but it was one of the (many!) interests that seemed to fall away when I started law school. Now, I dance – mo

stly ballet – a few times a week, and it’s something that I find so valuable in my daily life as a lawyer.

And it’s not just about the obvious stuff – the physical part, or the beauty of the discipline. It’s also about the increased focus and concentration that comes from taking a class like ballet. Sometimes I find myself working through the same pattern-recognition skills that I use in my analysis of legal documents or cases. It’s a similar process of figuring out the structure (of a document, or a piece of choreography) and seeing how all the pieces fit together.

One of the things I loved about studying law was finding the elegance in a piece of text, or in the judgment of a court. I think there’s a similar thing going on in ballet. Structure, form, technical precision – but above all, artistry.