In conflict resolution, there are hard negotiators and soft negotiators. Hard negotiators are the ones who take very aggressive positions, demanding sometimes more than they’d get on their best day in court, and making only minor concessions as the mediation progresses. Hard negotiators often refuse to explain the reasoning behind their positions, and they rebuff
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What the heck is a BATNA – and why do I need to know?
Mediators and advocates often say at some point during mediation something like the following: A good settlement is one where everyone is equally unhappy. I admit I used to say this in my mediation openings. But that was before I became a student of mediation, and before I began to study the works of William…
Trusts, Due Process, and Mediated Settlements
You have to love an appellate decision that starts off like this: “The legal historian Frederic William Maitland is reputed to have said, ‘The law is a seamless web.’ He didn’t.” Breslin v. Breslin, 62 Cal. App. 5th 801 (Cal. Ct. App. 2021)(footnote omitted). For a copy of the decision: https://casetext.com/case/breslin-v-breslin-3
The Breslin case is…
The Meta-Game of T&E Mediation
In around 2008, I became certified as a “Circuit Civil Mediator” by the Florida Supreme Court, intending for mediation to be an additional component to my trust and estates litigation practice. In the years since, I have successfully mediated cases in Florida and other states for very many trust and estate colleagues and their clients.…