Tim Hedeen: Good and Easy Class Exercise

OFOI Tim Hedeen described the following class exercise about the nature of negotiation, which can easily be adapted in many ways.  (If you want to give students even more of a run for their money, you might assign students to read the short piece on the definition of negotiation that Andrea Schneider, Noam Ebner, David Matz, and I wrote).

Hiro N. Aragaki: Things we know and think we know about Batna and Watna

This will likely be of most interest to scholars writing in this area.  In the final analysis, I think John’s original complaint that we are using BATNA “wrong” may be better directed at WATNA.  I do think that many of us—myself included—have not been particularly clear about what we mean by WATNA, and in this sense may be using the term incorrectly.

Mosten and Scully’s New Book on Unbundled Legal Services

Unbundling goes by many names, including “limited scope legal services.”  Lawyers provide specified services to clients rather than “full service” representation.  It’s like ordering food à la carte instead of a fixed, seven-course meal.

Stone Soup: Takeaways from new Hampshire Mediation Training

Recently, Susan Yates and I conducted mediation trainings on behalf of the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire, the New Hampshire Judicial Branch Office of Mediation and Arbitration, and the University of New Hampshire, School of Law.

Gorillas in the mist

Counting passes of a basketball. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? But there is a famous experiment which shows that many people get so engrossed in a simple task such as counting passes by a group of basketball players that they completely fail to notice the guy in the gorilla suit who walks through the room.