When we looked at one of the key law forums on Quora, the massive Q&A site, we checked one of the most commonly asked questions - what do successful lawyers do that others don't do?

The most-read answer to that question came from Andrew Weill a leading tax lawyer from Weill & Mazer who provided his list of the nine key factors used by successful lawyers, which included -

1. Prepare.
2. Prepare even more.
3. Prepare some more, just in case.
4. Wake up in the middle of the night, worried about something they maybe didn’t prepare enough. Check, and realize that they did prepare for it. Go back to bed.
5. Then wake up in a cold sweat, realize the part they didn’t think about before, then prepare that part too.
6. Go through multiple cycles of 1–5.
7. Know how to speak loudly and clearly.
8. Know when to shut up.
9. Be scrupulously professional, ethical, and courteous, especially with court personnel, own staff, and adversary and staff. (Exception: expert CPAs. They expect to be abused.)

So there they are - the keys to legal success from the most-read answer from Quora.