Is eye contact a good thing or a bad thing? Some will answer by saying it depends upon the person's cultural background as Westerners value sustained eye contact while Middle Easterners and/or Asians will view it as inappropriate. Others will answer by saying it depends on which study is under [Read More]
Do you have sweaty palms and a churning stomach whenever you have to negotiate something? Or, are you as cool as a cucumber during such events. A recent study indicates that your nervousness or lack of it affects the outcome of your negotiations.A blog by Katie Shonk posted on October [Read More]
After putting Argus down last October due to spleen cancer, we got a new dog- Cookie - who just turned three. Needless to say, after having a senior citizen dog, it is quite a change to be taking care of a young dog again.Unlike our other dogs, Cookie loves to [Read More]
When it comes to relying on our memories in negotiation, the cautionary tale is buyer beware! Once again, another study has been published demonstrating that our memories are quite fallible. They are simply not nearly as reliable as we think they are, and consequently, we should not rely on them [Read More]
Perception and transparency. Both are very importantin mediations and negotiations but can be so easily overlooked. This was brought home to me recently in a lengthy mediation that I conducted. It involved a commercial lease and the issue was whether money was owed by the tenant to the landlord for [Read More]
In December 2010, my water bill was extremely high; I posted a blog about my dispute with the Coachella Valley Water District ("CVWD"). In the end, I paid the bill as I did not want to receive a black mark on my credit history. (The CVWD has no mechanism like [Read More]
On Sunday, October 13, 2013, I will be participating in a panel presentation entitled, "Ethical Duties of Eliminating Bias in the Legal Profession" as part of the California State Bar's Eighty Sixth Annual Meeting in San Jose, California. The focus of our discussion will be hidden/implicit biases-those biases that exist [Read More]
Recently, I conducted a mediation in a matter which probably should never have been filed as a lawsuit; the economics simply were not there. Realistically, plaintiff could not have a Better Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA); every scenario would have been more costly no matter what the amount of [Read More]
