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]
In her latest edition of One Minute Negotiating Tips appearing in the August 2013 edition of the Los Angeles County Bar Association's digital magazine ( Volume VII, No. 2), my colleague Linda Bulmash addresses a topic near and dear to me: preparing for negotiation. Her tip actually takes more than [Read More]
In 1999, Professors Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris conducted a now well known study at Harvard University on distraction. As explained in a recent article on BBC Health News:Participants watched a video of two groups of people passing a basketball around - one group in black shirts, one group in [Read More]
If you have ever been in a dispute or in a conflict with someone (and who hasn't!), at some point, the "facts" of what allegedly happened are dissected. More often than not, there is disagreement about exactly what happened. It becomes a "he said, she said" argument in which credibility [Read More]
I just finished reading a book by J. Anderson Little, Making Money Talk (How to Mediate Insured Claims and Other Monetary Disputes) (ABA Publishing 2007). The book has a lot of practical advice both for mediators and for disputing parties. In simple terms, Mr. Little explains that most disputes which [Read More]
I conducted a mediation recently that had all of the ingredients for failure (as discussed in last week's blog) from the very start. It was a wage and hour case in which the plaintiff claimed, among other things, that she worked long hours for which she was not adequately paid, [Read More]
Most folks think that the purpose of mediation is to settle cases. However, in the last few weeks, I have conducted some actual mediations that were "successful" yet did not settle. Although the parties came to mediation with the goal of settling, they walked out accomplishing other purposes.There are many [Read More]
I came across a 2009 blog the other day written by Anthony K. Tjan for the Harvard Business Review. It contains 4 simple rules for effective negotiations; reading through them- I found them to be old friends; rules that I have discussed before in my blogs: 1. Be prepared. Mr. [Read More]
