Page 19 - Becoming a Better Negotiator

minimized. To maintain any influence on the process, an expert should be relied upon in opening statements as little as possible and then only for the technical analysis supporting his or her opinion.
Be Prepared
If you expect the other side to compromise because of case law that controls the matter, bring those cases. If there are documents or communications that contradict the other side’s position, bring them. A significant part of the advocate’s role in a mediation is to help the mediator make the other side less confident. No matter how impressive your resume, your opinion as an advocate is not going to convince the other side during mediation any more than it did when you had that argument outside mediation.
The best mediators are neutral – or more importantly perceived to be neutral. This is not to discount the fact that many mediators are engaged because of their subject matter knowledge. Why hire a construction lawyer as your neutral if she is not going to evaluate the claims? This paper briefly describes evaluative mediation and neutral evaluations elsewhere. But even facilitative mediations require elements of evaluation. However, there is a thin line between helping the parties evaluate their case and losing the neutrality that is essential to a good facilitator. Therefore you, the advocate, must supply the
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