Quick Negotiations Story
Today in Negotiations I was paired up against this kid named Don, who I went up against in Trial Advocacy class last semester. We were trying to settle a $450,000 lawsuit against my client and a $450,000 countersuit against his. Don asked me for $950,000–factored interest and inflation into the number–and, to his credit, he did it with a straight face. I offered him zero. After ten more minutes of negotiations, he dropped to $750,000. I again offered zero. And negotiations ended there. The end.
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January 30th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Counsellor Rick:
The facts that you have provided are meager. Opposing counsel’s offer appears to be premised on a position that he will prevail and that your counterclaim is worthless. On the other hand your counter offer appears to be premised on a position that your counterclaim is worth no more than what his claim is worth.
Unless your counterclaim is actually worthless your should have countered with a number that signals opposing counsel that you believe he is at risk to lose his claim and that you may well prevail on the counterclaim. Basically you should have countered with a demand that his client pay your client $950,000 (or some smaller amount as a show of “good faith”) in attempting to get this resolved. I assume you believe that when the day is done neither side should pay the other anything. That being the case, your first offer should not have been zero.
Also note that I did not use this as an opportunity to liken the negotiating process to playing poker with the other side. Presumably you will see this analogy sometime during this semester in this class.
January 30th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
I disagree with counselor Chuck: It seems to me that he was trying to broker a deal that would have assured that even if your counter-claim had been successful, his client (and HE) would have come out financially victorious. Since your entire counter-claim was (I assume) based on the false charges against your client, I would’ve taken the angle that they wouldn’t be gunning the profit/profit angle if they weren’t confident they could win the counter-claim.
You were right to offer zero dollars, but should have retorted with a demand to settle the counter-suit since the other counsel had obviously opened negotiations in bad faith, straight face or not.