Filtering by Category: Successful Mediation Tips
Thorough preparation is essential. Mediation may be the best and last opportunity for negotiating an off ramp that best maximizes the potential for achieving the client’s critical interests. In preparing for the mediation, counsel will consider many issues - here's a rundown.
Read More Successful Mediation TipsSome parties believe the Mediation Summary is prepared exclusively for the mediator’s benefit to persuade the mediator. Others prepare these summaries for the purpose of satisfying their clients. Simply because the mediator may be convinced of the merits of a case or defense, or the client is satisfied with the tone and tenor of the Summary, does not mean the Mediation Summary will have accomplished an essential purpose.
Read More Successful Mediation TipsThe concept of “anchoring” is as applicable in mediations as in any other negotiation setting. The first demand and counter-offer are critically important in that they are capable of communicating either hopelessness or glimmers of hope to the opposing party. An ineffective demand or counter that fails to achieve a client’s objectives, ones that are well below (if you are the defendant) or well above (if you are the plaintiff) what a client’s final position will ultimately be, and a party knows will be totally unacceptable to the other side, is not necessarily a productive negotiation strategy.
Read More Successful Mediation TipsExperienced negotiators are never in a rush to communicate their bottom line too early to either the mediator or the opposing party. Having taken the care to develop a negotiating strategy, experienced negotiators let that strategy work, as well as the mediation process, in a natural and holistic flow.
Read More Successful Mediation TipsWhen in trial, it is often critically important for the jury to believe that the attorney is the “smartest person in the room,” an impression that the trial attorney may intentionally convey particularly when cross examining the opponent’s expert witness. However, in the mediation setting listening, observing and learning is far more important than demonstrating one is the smartest person in the room.
Read More Successful Mediation Tips