“Pay extra attention to the minutiae and ensure you fully understand every term and condition,” this senior partner told me when I was a junior associate. “Some lawyers will try to bury critical provisions in the least obvious places. It’s your job to catch and...
“I would love to do the deal, but I just don’t have the authority.” I can’t count how many times I have heard this in a negotiation. It’s probably one of the most common statements in all negotiations. It’s also often a smart strategic move, especially if you...
The vote to depose Managing Partner Jessica Pearson of Pearson Hardman, the fictitious law firm in USA Network’s legal drama series Suits, was moments away. She was going to lose. But then star associate Mike Ross barged into the meeting, threw a folder onto the...
“I just bought us 48 hours,” star lawyer Harvey Specter told his understudy in the USA Network legal drama series Suits. He said this after getting his incarcerated client to hit him, a shocking move that gave them sufficient time to elicit a confession from the...
Founding Father George Washington has his famous cherry tree story about his honesty (which ironically was untrue). But Founding Father Benjamin Franklin has a real story about his very own mulberry tree behind his Philadelphia house – and it relates to his effective...
Without Founding Father Benjamin Franklin’s extraordinary negotiation skills, the United States of America may not even exist. It was Franklin, after all, that successfully negotiated with France for sufficient financial and military resources to fight the British in...
I am unaware of any research into the negotiating habits of monkeys. But the monkeys in Bali do negotiate – at least with humans – and apparently do it fairly well. This week’s column is based on BBC Planet Earth’s 3-minute video (here’s the LINK) entitled The...
Here’s part two of my annual list of lessons learned and a reminder to put these strategies into practice in 2024. You won’t get better results if you don’t implement them. Almost all negotiations involve the weighing and prioritizing of interests along with...
Here is Part Two of the negotiation lessons I gleaned from mega movie star and former California Governor and Mr. Universe Arnold Schwarzenegger’s book “Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life” (and here is Part One if you missed it). “If there is one unavoidable truth in...
