One of the issues that mediators learn about is power imbalance: one party may have more power during a negotiation than the other party. This may be due to any number of reasons. One side may have more money to fight the good fight, may have more information, expertise or [Read More]
Every so often, I glance at the blog posts on the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School website and one caught my eye. It is entitled “Ethics in Negotiations: How to Deal with Deception at the Bargaining Table” written by the PON staff and posted on June 11, 2019. [Read More]
Although I have taken many many hours of training about negotiation, none of them has really involved what we witnessed during the Presidential election: extreme negotiations. In essence, both Mrs. Clinton and president-elect Trump were engaging in extreme negotiations with the American public in the hopes of becoming the 45th [Read More]
Empathy- it is an interesting word. Although containing only 7 letters, it is packed full of meaning. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “empathy” as “the feeling that you understand and share another person's experiences and emotions: the ability to share someone else's feelings.” Or, more explicitly: “the action of understanding, being [Read More]
Negotiation strategy and legal malpractice claims have much in common. This point struck me as I read an article in the California state e-bar journal dated May 2, 2013, listing ten items that can lead to a legal malpractice claim. Looking through them, I realized that many of them will [Read More]
Two different blog posts on the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School's website suggests that mood and one's emotions play an important role in negotiations. If one negotiate while in a bad mood, chances are the negotiations will not turn out well. For this reason, we, intuitively, wait until [Read More]
As a mediator, I am trained not to assume, and to ask questions. Sometimes, when I am acting as me (and not as a mediator), that training goes out the window; sometimes, it does not. Sometimes, I catch myself in time and reinforce a valuable lesson: never assume. How did [Read More]
Last week, there was a pretty important mediation. It involved a lot of parties - 20 to be exact - on a very important issue- the global economy. It took place in London and was co-mediated. The primary mediator - Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain- seemed to be doing [Read More]
