The Solo Rainmaker Era is Over. We Pitch Clients an Elite Team

In high-stakes litigation, the solo rainmaker is a thing of the past. Winning in the courtroom today requires a talented, cohesive, and highly trained team.

Fostering the next generation of elite trial lawyers is the key to sustained success. We tell our clients that our commitment to developing exceptional litigators is how we deliver for them in complex, bet-the-company cases time and again.

Sell Your Client on Your Team

The most effective pitch starts with humility: The client may have called me, but they need much more. No matter how talented a lawyer is, the scale and complexity of modern litigation require teams that can adjust to legal challenges and changes in strategy while always focusing on the key aspects of advocacy. An individual may be nimble, but a cohesive team offers a more powerful form of adaptability: The ability to process vast information in parallel, to pressure-test strategies from multiple perspectives, and to pivot when a case takes an unexpected turn. No single lawyer can go it alone in a complex trial, so I emphasize to my clients from the start that my greatest strength is my team.

To build that team, you must foster a culture where every lawyer is both a student and a teacher. This means creating a framework for internal development. A senior lawyer who excels at cross-examination might run training workshops for the entire team and then work one-on-one with a junior lawyer to prepare a key cross-examination for an upcoming trial. New associates are encouraged to seek assignments that involve presenting to clients, and everyone is expected to speak up and contribute during strategy sessions.

That collaborative attitude combined with our alternative fee structure creates tangible benefits for clients. Because we can allocate increased resources without increasing our clients’ costs, we’re able to foster early, hands-on experience for associates, resulting in greater substantive contributions to the broader case narrative and strategy from the entire team. As partners in developing that strategy, our clients can then focus on the big picture, with a well-oiled team internally synthesizing complex issues to present clear, strategic decision points. And when clients see our junior lawyers stepping up and delivering in real time, it deepens their confidence in the whole team and the value we bring.

Forging the Next Generation

Developing skilled trial lawyers takes mentorship and sustained effort. We all need lots of practice—“getting reps,” as we call it. That is the only way to learn our craft, including learning the hard way. I always describe some of my more humbling moments in the courtroom—and there have been many—to show our associates how the lessons we teach are really internalized.

One of our most important responsibilities is finding opportunities for younger attorneys to speak in court, present to clients, and lead pro bono cases so they can hone the skills they will need when they take their first witness or deliver a closing argument. But it is not enough to simply present the opportunity and walk away, hoping they learn by osmosis.

Mentorship must be structured, continuous, and deliberate. Senior attorneys must teach, not just tell. Then, most importantly, you must let the junior attorneys perform. It’s not always easy to keep quiet while they examine a witness or argue a motion to a judge, especially when things aren’t going well. But thriving—or simply surviving—through those challenges is what builds confidence and judgment. Senior attorneys have to be willing to step back and allow those moments, because it is in those moments that good trial lawyers become great.

Exceptional mentorship has been a foundation of my own career, and it has been at the front of my mind lately, as we mourned the passing of one of my mentors, and a giant of our field, Joseph Hartzler, in December. I met Joe when I was a young prosecutor assigned to his team for the prosecution of Timothy McVeigh, who carried out the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. The most valuable lesson he taught me was that winning trials requires telling a streamlined, compelling story—not simply calling the most witnesses or presenting the most evidence. I have done my best to pass that lesson on, helping young lawyers find their own voice, learn to tell clear, persuasive narratives, and grow into skilled trial advocates.

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Author Information

Beth Wilkinson is a founding partner of the trial boutique, Wilkinson Stekloff, and has first-chaired more than 60 jury trials.

Wilkinson was an honoree of Bloomberg Law’s inaugural Unrivaled distinction, celebrating litigators who lead the legal industry in high-stakes trials and settlements of impactful matters for clients.