Beyond Winning: Negotiating to Create Value in Deals and Disputes
Conflict is inevitable, in both deals and disputes. Yet when clients call in the lawyers to haggle over who gets how much of the pie, traditional hard-bargaining tactics can lead to ruin. Too often, deals blow up, cases don’t settle, relationships fall apart, justice is delayed. Beyond Winning charts a way out of our current crisis of confidence in the legal system. It offers a fresh look at negotiation, aimed at helping lawyers turn disputes into deals, and deals into better deals, through...
Search in google:
Conflict is inevitable, in both deals and disputes. Yet when clients call in the lawyers to haggle over who gets how much of the pie, traditional hard-bargaining tactics can lead to ruin. Too often, deals blow up, cases don't settle, relationships fall apart, justice is delayed. Beyond Winning charts a way out of our current crisis of confidence in the legal system. It offers a fresh look at negotiation, aimed at helping lawyers turn disputes into deals, and deals into better deals, through practical, tough-minded problem-solving techniques.In this step-by-step guide to conflict resolution, the authors describe the many obstacles that can derail a legal negotiation, both behind the bargaining table with one's own client and across the table with the other side. They offer clear, candid advice about ways lawyers can search for beneficial trades, enlarge the scope of interests, improve communication, minimize transaction costs, and leave both sides better off than before. But lawyers cannot do the job alone. People who hire lawyers must help change the game from conflict to collaboration. The entrepreneur structuring a joint venture, the plaintiff embroiled in a civil suit, the CEO negotiating an employment contract, the real estate developer concerned with environmental hazards, the parent considering a custody battle—clients who understand the pressures and incentives a lawyer faces can work more effectively within the legal system to promote their own best interests. Attorneys exhausted by the trench warfare of cases that drag on for years will find here a positive, proven approach to revitalizing their profession. Publishers Weekly Observing that today's tough, adversarial legal negotiations preempt mutually beneficial problem solving between parties, Mnookin (director of the Harvard Negotiation Research Project and a professor at Harvard Law School) and his coauthors urge lawyers to adopt a proactive, optimistic and realistic mindset to transform their practices. Though they are careful to acknowledge the difficulty of changing from the standard gladiatorial stance, Mnookin, Peppet and Tulumello present compelling examples of the advantages that such a change can bring in divorce cases, sales of existing companies, real estate deals and contract negotiations. Their comparison of litigation-gone-bad (e.g., the Buchwald v. Paramount Pictures lawsuit that benefited neither party) with more positive approaches (e.g., the problem-solving mode used in the once-nasty Digital Equipment Corp. patent infringement dispute with Intel) argues for serious consideration of their techniques. For those still resistant to giving up their Road Warrior ways, the authors provide tables of strategies with "Limiting Assumptions" contrasted with "More Helpful Assumptions" that dare even the most pigheaded to ignore common sense. Although Mnookin, Peppet and Tulumello have consciously aimed the book at attorneys who want to serve clients' broader needs better as well as to protect their interests, the authors' practical, straightforward and jargon-free style makes this a valuable resource for anybody who is about to hire an attorney, file a lawsuit or sign a contract. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\|
PrefaceixIntroduction1Part IThe Dynamics of Negotiation91The Tension between Creating and Distributing Value112The Tension between Empathy and Assertiveness443The Tension between Principals and Agents69Part IIWhy Lawyers?934The Challenges of Dispute Resolution975The Challenges of Deal-Making1276Psychological and Cultural Barriers156Part IIIA Problem-Solving Approach1737Behind the Table1788Across the Table2049Advice for Resolving Disputes22410Advice for Making Deals249Part IVSpecial Issues27311Professional and Ethical Dilemmas27412Organizations and Multiple Parties295Conclusion315Notes325Index349
\ ABA Journal[Beyond Winning] rallies all of the [Harvard Negotiation Research Project's] prior gems of wisdom on negotiation around the central theme of creating value. [The book] should be required reading for all lawyers and law students, for all mediators and judges. It is a book that every lawyer should ask his or her client to read (or reread) prior to commencing any important transaction or dispute, negotiation or mediation. Crafted in a reader-friendly style, the book energetically promotes an interdisciplinary approach to problem-solving in negotiation… In contrast to other experts' advice to be reactive initially in a negotiation, the authors here encourage a proactive, 'take charge' approach to engaging negotiators across the table in problem-solving. This approach is not initially directed to the substance of the dispute or transaction, but rather to the nature and structure of the negotiation process that the parties might together design… This is a book for everyone who negotiates—a universe that includes all of us. Inevitably, it will move lawyers into a new paradigm of thinking about higher-quality solutions in negotiation and mediation, and about how to achieve the best possible results for their clients. It is bound to change the world of negotiation in this new millennium.\ — John W. Cooley\ \ \ \ \ \ BooklistConventional negotiating strategy often requires adversarial positions, but the authors propose viewing negotiating as a problem-solving task… They explain that creating value is the key to successful negotiating. The goal should not be to win the biggest piece of the pie but to make the pie bigger!\ — David Rouse\ \ \ \ New York Law JournalThe practice of law has become more contentious and competitive, not less. The authors of [Beyond Winning]…advocate that parties [instead] practice 'value creation' (i.e., the attempt to 'enlarge the pie') so that both parties to a negotiation receive bigger returns… The book does an excellent job of breaking down relationships, players, tensions and organizations to lay bare the inner-workings of the actors in a negotiation and the situations they create. Because of its unique objective of educating attorneys and clients, Beyond Winning is a good addition to any library on negotiation.\ — William J. Estes\ \ \ \ \ \ Publishers Weekly\ - Publisher's Weekly\ Observing that today's tough, adversarial legal negotiations preempt mutually beneficial problem solving between parties, Mnookin (director of the Harvard Negotiation Research Project and a professor at Harvard Law School) and his coauthors urge lawyers to adopt a proactive, optimistic and realistic mindset to transform their practices. Though they are careful to acknowledge the difficulty of changing from the standard gladiatorial stance, Mnookin, Peppet and Tulumello present compelling examples of the advantages that such a change can bring in divorce cases, sales of existing companies, real estate deals and contract negotiations. Their comparison of litigation-gone-bad (e.g., the Buchwald v. Paramount Pictures lawsuit that benefited neither party) with more positive approaches (e.g., the problem-solving mode used in the once-nasty Digital Equipment Corp. patent infringement dispute with Intel) argues for serious consideration of their techniques. For those still resistant to giving up their Road Warrior ways, the authors provide tables of strategies with "Limiting Assumptions" contrasted with "More Helpful Assumptions" that dare even the most pigheaded to ignore common sense. Although Mnookin, Peppet and Tulumello have consciously aimed the book at attorneys who want to serve clients' broader needs better as well as to protect their interests, the authors' practical, straightforward and jargon-free style makes this a valuable resource for anybody who is about to hire an attorney, file a lawsuit or sign a contract. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\|\ \
