for

Legal Professionals

Legal professionals negotiate ceaselessly.

If there's one profession that demands negotiating proficiency, it's law. Legal professionals—attorneys, paralegals, contract administrators, legal secretaries, and legal support personnel—spend more time negotiating than anything else they do. They negotiate with clients, partners, associates, accountants, vendors, colleagues, paralegals, bosses, police officers, scientists, witnesses, investigators, probation officers, subordinates, staff, opposing counsel, judges, managers, customers, merchants, bureaucrats, lobbyists, clerks, spouses, "significant others", lovers, children, parents, family, friends, and enemies. Legal professionals haggle with individuals and groups, at home and at work, day and night, rain and shine. And their success is determined, to a considerable extent, by how well they do it.

Negotiating wasn't part of their training.

Did you learn how to negotiate in law school? No? Neither did we. Regardless of your educational background, wisdom, or brainpower, unless you were lucky enough to spend years being tutored by a truly skilled negotiator, you probably don't know much more about negotiating than the next person. Being a legal professional doesn't even begin to make you a negotiator!

Negotiate to Win for Legal Professionals is specifically designed to bridge the gap between legal training and negotiating practice. It applies the proven, learning-by-doing methodology of Negotiate to Win ®—our award-winning flagship program—to the needs of today's legal professionals. Negotiate to Win for Legal Professionals combines practicality, exceptional materials, and top-notch instructors, to quickly give your legal team the skills they need to win.

We'll Coach You To Succeed.

Negotiate to Win for Legal Professionals will:

Teach general negotiating principles and reveal personal negotiating strengths and weaknesses;

Supply the tools needed to prepare for negotiations;

Improve the recognition of legal negotiating tactics and how to respond effectively to them;

Enhance negotiating skill and confidence;

Improve proficiency in mediation and other ADR techniques; and

Demonstrate how to continue learning from negotiation experiences.

Who Should Attend Negotiate to Win for Legal Professionals?

Negotiate to Win for Legal Professionals is intended for both new and experienced attorneys, legal professionals, and support personnel. Team attendance is encouraged. Negotiate to Win is not a prerequisite.

Methodology

Like Negotiate to Win, Negotiate to Win for Legal Professionals creates a "high-immersion" training environment for maximum participation and learning. Instructional methods include multimedia, lecture, group discussion, diagnostic tests and evaluations, simulations, and other interactive techniques. Negotiate to Win for Legal Professionals features lots of personal attention and plenty of lively, thought-provoking dialogue. During the program, students are regularly challenged to demonstrate what they've learned through generic and customized case study simulations.

Session Length

Negotiate to Win for Legal Professionals is typically a two-day program. However, program length can be adjusted to fit your requirements—from under one hour to two or more days.

Instructors

All instructors for Negotiate to Win for Legal Professionals are well-known and highly-respected attorneys in negotiating practice. They combine their renowned negotiating abilities with exceptional facilitation skill to deliver an unforgettable training experience. Please click here for information on our instructors.

Tailoring

Many firms promise tailored programs but deliver the same tired old materials. Common Ground is different. When we say tailored, we mean it. We work with you to ensure that Negotiate to Win for Legal Professionals thoroughly and specifically addresses your organization's priorities and concerns. We interview your people and (confidentially, of course) we learn your business—who you are, what you do, how you do it, where your industry stands and where you stand in your industry, what your short- and long-term objectives are, what circumstances your negotiatiors face, and who your target audience will be. With this information in hand, we prepare unique training materials for you.

Tailored case studies—lifelike scenarios that students can instantly relate to—are the best way to clarify, validate and reinforce classroom concepts, and make them immediately transferable to the workplace. Common Ground is unsurpassed when it comes to the creation of unique, client-specific exercises. At no additional charge, we work in partnership with you to develop convincingly realistic scenarios that will excite and inform your attendees.

Negotiate to Win for Legal Professionals is flexibly designed to complement and reinforce your organization's current training offerings.

Sample Topics

Negotiation strategies and tactics

Creative problem solving; lateral and vertical thinking

Improving communication in negotiations

Managing emotions in negotiations

Distinguishing interests from positions; exploring alternatives

Competitive and collaborative negotiation techniques

Situations best suited for mediation

Stages of the mediation process

Representing your client in mediation

Good faith, confidentiality and fairness in mediation

Ideas for breaking impasses

Ethical issues and assumptions

Male-female negotiations

Enhancing a weak bargaining position

Telephone negotiations

Special negotiating issues problems in contract, tort, criminal, medico-legal, personal injury, commercial, family, employment, landlord-tenant, immigration, and other legal arenas

Lying, misleading, and confidentiality

Model Rules of Professional Conduct

Preparation and planning; defining interests and issues; information gathering; strengths, weaknesses, value, settlement range, offers, timing, concession schedule

Creativity in developing solutions; shifting the focus from traditional to exceptional outcomes

Lowering the other side's expectations

Time pressure; risk-taking in the final stages

International and cross-cultural negotiating

Post-negotiation issues; monitoring performance; characteristics of successful agreements

Confidentiality

In all aspects of their work with Common Ground, clients are assured of complete confidentiality. Our commitment to discretion and privacy encourages clients to give us access to the information we need to customize Negotiate to Win for Legal Professionals for maximum participation and learning. Upon request, Common Ground will be pleased to formalize this promise with a Nondisclosure Agreement.

Participant Materials

Participants receive a variety of valuable in-class and take-home handouts and tools, including checklists, case studies, samples, guides, pocket reference cards, a personal action planner, and Negotiate to Win for Legal Professionals' outstanding Manual (designed as a practical, desktop reference for continued use long after the session).

On-Site Requirements

You provide the training facility, an LCD projector, a screen, a flip chart and markers, and above all, enthusiastic attendees who sincerely want to improve their negotiating skills! Optional items such as sign-in sheets, evaluation forms, writing materials, name cards and badges, and diplomas are supplied by clients.

CLE Credit

Negotiate to Win for Legal Professionals is fully accredited in mandatory continuing legal education jurisdictions for varying numbers of credit hours. Please contact us for specific information on CLE, CPE, or other professional accreditation.

Guarantee

Our guarantee is very straightforward. We think it says a lot about the effectiveness of Common Ground training. We guarantee that within two weeks after Negotiate to Win for Legal Professionals, you'll recover the price of the session through better negotiating. If not, we'll refund your money.

Detailed Information

For further information about Negotiate to Win for Legal Professionals, including pricing, a course outline, agenda, and proposal, please click "Tell Me More," below.

Tell Me More