Courses

As a lawyer, you will negotiate every day, and not just on behalf of clients in matters like business deals or criminal plea bargains. You will negotiate with colleagues as you hash out the details of your work assignments, with potential employers over salary and compensation issues, and with those outside of work in settings as routine as choosing which movie to watch or as significant as buying a home. This class will provide you the chance to hone your negotiation skills through a series of role-play simulations from a range of settings, including simple buyer-seller bargains to complex multi-issue, multi-party negotiations. Because of your legal training, others will expect that you can negotiate zealously and effectively without burning relationships, a balance difficult to strike for even the most experienced lawyers. The goals of this class are (i) to introduce students to negotiation theory, with a focus on the "collaborative" negotiation method used by most successful negotiators today; (2) to learn about yourself and your effectiveness in a variety of negotiation settings; (3) to improve your ability to understand and predict the behavior of others during a negotiation; (4) to build confidence in your negotiation skills. This class is taught largely through simulations. For each case, you will be assigned a particular role, and you will be given background materials, instructions and (often) confidential information to aid you in your preparation. CLASS ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY because your absence will strand other classmates who were assigned to negotiate with you. If you anticipate that you will miss class, you should not enroll in this course. Several of the negotiation exercises will be completed outside of class time. This class will be taught in conjunction with the Negotiation section taught by Professor Shadel. The classes will be combined for certain lectures and some negotiation exercises. ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENT: Attendance at every class is mandatory. Enrolled students who do not attend the first class session will be dropped. Students seeking to enroll in this course must attend the first class session.