Cravath Partner Offers Practice Tips

In the 30-plus years he has been a lawyer at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, John Beerbower has learned a few things about litigation.

Among them: Don't try to be the client's friend. Yet listen, empathize and try to understand what the client wants. (It's often not what the client thinks he or she wants.) And know what your own flaws are, so you can compensate for them, reports the London Times.

For example, he himself has to fight a tendency to talk too much, says Beerbower, a litigation partner in the firm's New York office. Lawyers with totally different styles can be equally effective at dealing with clients, he notes, but the good ones all share "a self-awareness that allowed them to temper their natural inclinations at the right moments."