Improving Negotiation Skills by Thomas Noble Part 8

Basic Elements: Checklist

Phase I: Pre-bargaining Phase
• Information
• Leverage
• Issues
• Rapport
• Goals and expectations
• Type of negotiation
• Budget
• Plan
Phase II: Bargaining Phase
• Logistics
• Opening offer
• Subsequent offers
• Tactics
• Concessions
• Resolution
Phase III: Closure Phase
• Logistics
• Closing checklist
• Emotional closure
• Implementation
Negotiation Checklist

• Confirm with other parties (and mediator)
• Confirm logistics with client
Pack:
• Files: pleadings, evidence, current matters
• Books
• Checklists
• Laptop/printer/paper/ink cartridge
• Calculator
• Check for mediator?
• Trial notebook
• Calendar
• Notepad/pen/highlighter/post-it notes/file folders/misc.
Analysis:
• Review Chronology
• Review prior settlement proposals
• List Issues
• Strengths and weaknesses
• Review and organize docs
• Review discovery responses (incl depos)
• Marshall Evidence re each issue
• Review legal research
• Negotiating Strategy
• Opening offer
• Concessions
• Closing strategy
Document preparation:
• Letter to mediator
• Update Inventory?
• Proposed Mediation Agreement/Decree
• Spreadsheets
• Disk (issues/spreadsheets/agreement)
• Questions
• Waiver of Discovery
Works Consulted

Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People, by G. Richard Shell.
Deal Power: 6 Foolproof Steps to Making Deals of Any Size by Marc Diener.
Getting Past No: Negotiating Your Way From Confrontation to Cooperation, by William Ury.
Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, by Roger Fisher and William Ury.
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, by Robert B. Cialdini (Rev. Ed., 1993).
Legal Negotiation in a Nutshell, by Larry L. Teply.
Secrets of Power Negotiating: Inside Secrets from a Master Negotiator, by Roger Dawson.
Smart Negotiating: How to Make Good Deals in the Real World, by James C. Freund.
The Negotiation Tool Kit by Roger J. Volkema.
The Power of Negotiating: Strategies for Success by Mike R. Stark.
The Tao of Negotiation by Joel Edelman and Mary Beth Crain.
The Total Negotiator by Stephen M. Pollan and Mark Levine.
ENDNOTES

1 Shell, p.6.
2 Pollan and Levine, p.7.
3 Shell, p.6
4 "... you must get into the habit of reviewing the relationship factor as a routine part of effective negotiation planning." Shell, p. 63.
5 Shell, p.15.
6 Dawson, p. 19.
7 Freund, p. 24.
8 Teply, p. 4.
9 Shell, p. 59.
10 Shell, p. 61.
11 Shell, p. 63.
12 Shell, p. 69.
13 Fisher and Ury, Getting to Yes, p. 36, 37.
14 Fisher and Ury, Getting to Yes, p. 22.
15 Id. at 22.
16 Id. at 23.
17 Id.
18 Id. at 28.
19 Shell, p. 13.
20 Shell, p. xiv.
21 Fisher and Ury, Getting to Yes, p. 8.
22 Shell, p. 17.
23 Fisher and Ury, Getting to Yes, p. 31.
24 Id., at 34.
25 Id., at 36.
26 Freund, p. 23.
27 Freund, p. 92.
28 Pollan and Levine, p. 7.
29 Fisher and Ury, who are trying to discourage anything that smacks of "positional bargaining" correctly point out that "The more extreme the opening positions and the smaller the concessions, the more time and effort it will take to discover whether or not agreement is possible." (Getting to Yes, p. 6.).
30 Dawson, p. 13.
31 Shell, p. 24.
32 Freund, p. 119. I am not sure that a first offer that evokes a negative response is not preferable in some cases.
33 Cialdini, p. 4.
34 Freund, p. 47.
35 Freund, p. 73.
36 Freund, p. 95.
37 Freund, p. 119.
38 Freund, p. 123.
39 Shell, p. 16, 17.
40 Cialdini, p. 40.
41 Cialdini, p. 12.
42 Cialdini, p. 50.
43 Freund, p. 114.
44 Shell, p. 29.
45 Shell, p. 34.
46 Cialdini, p. 18.
47 Cialdini, p. 37.
48 Cialdini, p. 30.
49 Cialdini, p. 35.
50 Shell, p. xiv.
51 Freund, p. 82.
52 Freund, p. 113.
53 Shell, p. 51.
54 Shell, p. xiv.
55 Shell, p. 31.
56 Freund, p. 70.
57 Fisher and Ury, Getting to Yes, p. xviii.
58 Shell, p. 67.
59 Fisher and Ury, Getting to Yes, p. 10.
60 Shell, p. 30.
61 Shell, p. 30.
62 Freund, p. 54.
63 According to Freund (p. 33), the "four basic skills of smart negotiating" are: leverage, information, credibility, and judgment.
64 Freund, p. 43.
65 Freund, p. 43, 44.
66 "...one of the principal shared characteristics of legal negotiators who are viewed as effective is that they are prepared". (Teply, p.9).
67 Shell, p. 15.
68 Freund, p. 80.
69 Freund, p. 88.
70 Shell, p. 43.
71 Id.
72 Shell, p. 45.
73 Shell, p. 53.
74 Shell refers to this concept as the "consistency trap" (p. 45). 75 Shell, p. 45.
76 Fisher and Ury, Getting to Yes, p. 4,5.
77 Freund, p. 88.
78 Fisher and Ury, Getting to Yes, p. 32.
________________________________________

© 2001 Law Offices of Thomas Noble, P.C.