According to a traditional dynamic in a case with multiple defendants, a plaintiff makes a demand (or a new demand), and then each defendant has to decide how much to indicate it is willing to contribute to a settlement (with that calculation being based in part on the plaintiff’s demand and in part on the defendant’s … Continue reading Blind Negotiations
There are many unforseen consequences of the writer’s strike, not the least of which is that my law students are watching American Gladiators. (Maybe they would do this anyway but I am clinging to the hope that, faced with choices, they would not.) When is the writer’s strike going to end? Is this strike, like the … Continue reading The Writer’s Guild Strike and American Gladiators
The President and I actually have something in common–we are both rooting for peace in the Middle East before the end of his term! He, no doubt, has a whole host of reasons, not the least of the which would be managing to salvage some foreign policy success to help his legacy. I find it … Continue reading Peace in the New Year
So, in an attempt to avoid more grading (as Michael wrote about so eloquently last week), I was thinking about better ways of assessing progress in ADR classes. I, for one, still don’t think that I have quite figured out the successful way to test law students. I also think students know this. I give … Continue reading Negotiating Your Grades
The agency literature is filled with discussions of how best to structure compensation systems to promote the right incentives for people we hire to do things on our behalf. Embedded in most of it is an assumption that we can tell when someone is doing a good job. That’s not a bold assumption when I … Continue reading Evaluating Agents, Attorneys, Arbitrators, Mediators (and Students)
Sheldon Larky, a full-time family law mediator from Michigan, visited the Moritz College of Law to speak to our students about mediation advocacy and negotiation tactics. Sheldon was a delightful speaker who offered some interesting insights. Chief among those were that one should never negotiate at one’s own office. If a lawyer chooses to negotiate … Continue reading Negotiation Techniques
Aside from the fact you might not have cared about the Packer game last week, unless you lived in a local market (Milwaukee, Green Bay, or Dallas), you couldn’t have watched it anyway. Due to the stalled negotiations between the NFL and cable providers, with Comcast and Time Warner leading the way, only about 4 … Continue reading Why I Got to Watch the Packers Lose (And You Probably Did Not)
A few weeks ago, the weekly Torah portion to be read in synagogues across the country dealt with the story of Jacob & Esau. Most of us know this story as a tale of deception—Rachel & Jacob plotting to fool Isaac into giving the eldest son’s blessing (which should have gone to Esau) instead to … Continue reading The Season of Brotherly Love
You would think that negotiation professors would be among the best at picking and choosing their times to negotiate, right? We prepare, analyze our BATNA, come up with good options, set the mood, work on the relationship, order in food, and get set to have a wonderful collaborative experience. We also know when to avoid … Continue reading Black Friday and Avoiding Negotiation
Strikes that get played out in the news are interesting public displays of negotiation positions that we are often not privy to otherwise. In the strike of the Writers Guild of America, their position, as expressed in the New York Times by Damon Lindeloff (the co-creator and head writer for the television series Lost) is … Continue reading Missing Jon Stewart and What the Writer’s Guild Strike Has to do with Negotiation
