The Five Habits for Cross Cultural Lawyering by Sue Bryant and Jean Koh Peters discusses how cross-cultural misunderstandings can arise between lawyers and clients.  The result? Lawyers pursue strategies inconsistent with their clients’ values.  Lawyers can improve their cross-cultural effectiveness (and client communication) by learning  “culture-specific” knowledge when dealing with clients from a particular culture, and  “culture-general” knowledge when dealing with clients from a broad variety of cultures.

This analysis is a good reminder–even for seasoned international lawyers–of just how important it is to develop cross-cultural competence.