Teddy Snyder

Tag: negotiation

  • COVID-19 IS MESSING THIS UP, TOO

    HOW CCP 599 HELPS AND HURTS

    Due to the pandemic, very few cases are being tried. Reports from the legal community indicate that the absence of an imminent trial date is inducing parties to put off settlement as well.

    A History of Procrastination
    Lawyers have always seemed to have a reason why it’s too early to settle a case. They need to get another report, look under every rock for new information, research the heck out of every issue whether or not it is pivotal. Traditionally, discovery cut-offs and upcoming trial dates have put up a big stop sign to that process in civil cases. Without that stop sign, some workers compensation cases continue for decades.

    Human nature being what it is, litigants tend to wait to the last minute to undertake the tasks necessary to close a case. The global pandemic has aggravated our proclivity to procrastinate.

    When do cases settle? Legal and claims professionals have always referred to the ubiquitous last-minute settlements as happening “on the courthouse steps.” As trial dates get pushed further and further back on courts’ calendars, parties put off settlement longer.

    CCP 599 Makes Procrastination Easy
    When the global pandemic forced courthouses to close their doors, the California legislature recognized the obstacles to litigants’ ability to move their cases forward. The response was Code of Civil Procedure 599. This new section delays most civil litigation deadlines during the official COVID-19 state of emergency and for 180 days thereafter. If a deadline had not passed by March 19, 2020, the continuance or postponement of a trial date extended that deadline. That includes discovery cut-offs and dates for identification of expert witnesses and motions for summary judgment. Notably, the court retains the power to order litigation deadlines. Parties can also agree to self-impose deadlines which would otherwise be suspended.

    At the beginning of the pandemic, no one had any idea how long this suspension would last or how we would all learn to conduct much of the court’s business remotely. Still, 599 remains in place. Some lawyers and claims professionals report that the absence of a hard deadline has resulted in fewer settlements.

    Blessing or Curse?
    In the last year, we have learned to manage litigation pretty well without setting foot in the courthouse. Doctors have resumed seeing patients. The suspension of many hard deadlines provided breathing room while we figured it all out. These are blessings.

    On the flip side, cases are backing up. After courthouse life returns to a version of normal, it will take a long time to work through the backup. Once 599 expires, there will be a rush to undertake long-delayed tasks critical to settlement. Things could get kind of crazy, and that’s the curse.

    What to Do Now
    Before any more time passes, look at those files to see what can be done to set them up for settlement. Almost all mediations are now occurring remotely. Let’s settle those cases promptly, so you can better manage your caseload once the state of emergency is lifted.

  • Are You Serious?

    The #1 predictor of mediation success is whether the participants have come with a seriousness of purpose. They understand that mediation is their best chance to avoid delay and expense, not to mention a bad result. They have readied themselves to settle the case.

    Why Are You Here?
    Sure, the court may have ordered the parties to mediation. Look at this as a blessing. You might have struggled to get your opponent to the negotiating table. Now the court has done this for you. Moreover, instead of having to deal with insincere posturing, the mediator can filter communications to get to the crux of the dispute.The participant who only comes to mediation because “opposing counsel wanted to do this” is throwing away an opportunity and dishonoring the client.Have You Prepared?
    Mediation helps parties resolve disputes efficiently. Yet, both attorneys and their clients often show up for mediation completely unprepared. Being prepared doesn’t just mean knowing the facts and law of your case, though some mediation participants even disdain this basic step.

    Before coming to mediation, double-check whether you have followed the mediator’s pre-mediation instructions and requirements. This is doubly important in an era of remote video mediation.

    Evaluation is Key
    Take the time to thoroughly evaluate your case. Don’t think you can come in with an extreme number and wing it. Be prepared to explain your proposal, including why it is reasonable. What calculations were involved? Have you researched similar issues online so you can show how those precedents apply or are different?

    The next step is to educate the client about that evaluation and plan your negotiation. Make sure you know who can grant settlement authority and line it up in advance of the mediation. The ultimate checkwriter should attend the mediation.

    Come to mediation ready to settle, and chances are high you will.

  • The Smartest Thing to Do in Mediation

    W-A-I-T: these four letters remind you to ask yourself Why Am I Talking? Silence is often your most effective negotiation technique.
     

    Silence has two big benefits
    The first benefit of silence is to be better able to respond. Too many people come to mediation with their attitudes so entrenched that they don’t listen. You cannot successfully respond if you have not listened—really listened—to the opposing party.

    Do not multi-task. During a remote mediation on your laptop, no one may be able to see you scrolling on your phone. But you are cheating yourself of the opportunity to collect information to help you conclude the case. You can miss something important if you’re not paying attention.

    Lose the condescension. If you come to mediation with the attitude that your side is righteous and the other side’s views are valueless so you don’t have to pay attention to them, the initial obstacle to reaching settlement is yourself.

    The second benefit is that if you just stay quiet, the other party may rattle off information to fill the silence void that damages their own case.

    Listen First

    Lawyers in particular are prone to thinking about what to say next instead of taking heed of what’s happening in the moment. It’s why they can miss asking the follow-up question a deponent’s answer should have prompted. And it’s why they ignore signals that would help them settle their case.

    As your mediator, my job is to recognize those missed signals and follow up with the participants to facilitate settlement.

  • Why Your Cases Aren’t Settling

    Why aren’t your cases settling? In his book, How to Talk to Strangers, best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell explains that we normally DTT, Default-To-Truth, when we receive communication. When we default to lies instead of to truth, we undermine our ability to get to resolution.

    The Litigation Defaults-To-Lies
    In almost every facet of our lives, most people take information at face value until something convinces them otherwise. Actually, it’s the only way a society can survive. Unfortunately, though, Gladwell points out, our default to truth lets people like Bernie Madoff, Jerry Sandusky and simultaneous CIA analyst and Cuban spy Ana Belen Montes perpetuate their crimes. Evidence built up, but the people who received the information rationalized it away.

    The other end of the spectrum is when a person suspects everyone of being a liar and treats them that way. Gladwell analyzes the 2015 Texas police handling of the Sandra Bland arrest. Officer Brian Encinia habitually stopped motorists on the thinnest, and sometimes manufactured, pretexts as often as multiple times per hour, an off-the-chart frequency rate. He then found reasons to escalate the situation. The “view everyone with suspicion” philosophy of policing originated as a response to crime in a tiny geographic area, but, Gladwell writes, went out of control.
    Litigants are often in the default-to-lie camp. When an adjuster was told a claimant’s position on an issue, the immediate reaction without any further information was, “She’s a liar.” Many claims and litigation professionals default to fight every issue, even when that’s a losing argument.

    Transparency is the term for another negotiating problem, though it might be better called non-transparency. Transparency assumes that body language reflects what is going on in a person’s mind. An early reaction to remote mediation was an objection to not being able to closely observe someone’s facial expressions and body language. Gladwell documents that we are all very poor at correlating those things, even judges who use observation to set bail and police officers who are trained in assessing facial and body signals.

    We humans can have many things going on in our brains at the same time. A facial expression may reflect something going on that has nothing to do with that person’s interaction with us at that moment. What’s more, different cultural groups use and interpret body language differently. The face 91% of Spaniards identified as angry was seen that way by only 7% of people who lived in the Tobriand Islands in the Solomon Sea.

    The Lesson

    Even when you are sure your evidence unquestionably contradicts your opponent’s position, active listening with an open mind can efficiently lead to settlement. Defaulting to lies does not.

  • The Role of Empathy in Settlement

    Empathy, the ability to see a situation from a different point of view, is an important negotiation and advocacy skill. You must be able to anticipate and understand your opponent’s position to effectively counter it. Debate trainers assign students to argue the position opposite their personal beliefs to foster this skill.
    I’m Fine. To Hell With You
    Lately we have seen a stunning lack of empathy in our country. On the same day as a county announced that COVID-19 had become the county’s leading cause of death, one resident yelled, “It’s my body and I want to go to work.” Another defiantly asked, “Why shouldn’t I be able to sit in a restaurant and eat?”

    The answer is that many people, perhaps the majority, who are infected with the virus are asymptomatic. COVID-19, unlike collisions, drownings, obesity, heart disease, and cancer, is wildly contagious. There is currently no vaccine and no cure. More than 81,000 Americans have died. Around the world, people are not allowed to work in close quarters or sit in a restaurant because that potentially exposes coworkers, servers and other customers to the contagion. Not everyone reacts to the virus the same way.

    Similarly, the television journalist who tweeted that anyone who wants to continue to shelter in place should just stay home lacks any awareness of how most people live. If the boss requires workers to show up or lose their jobs, those workers don’t have the luxury of working from home. There are more people living paycheck-to-paycheck to pay the rent and buy groceries than people pulling in big bucks.

    And then there’s the 79-year-old Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice who said “regular folks” were not getting COVID-19. Got that, anyone with a family member in a nursing home?

    Negotiators need not have suffered a serious injury or business reversal themselves to empathize with someone who has. Perhaps you have had a personal experience which makes you wonder why your negotiating opponent is apparently so much less resilient that you. Again, not everyone reacts to an event the same way. An inability to concede that these are that person’s feelings, even if you think they are baseless, impedes meaningful settlement discussions.

  • Mediator As Filter

    There’s a lot of interest lately in filtering out bad stuff. Of course, we use filters all the time: air filters in the ceilings in our houses, filters to keep the coffee grounds out of our drinks, water filters to improve the stuff that comes from our faucets, filtered cigarettes— well, you get the idea.

    Think about this. Your negotiations aren’t leading to resolution because of the absence of a filter. A big part of what a mediator does is filter messages between disputing parties.

    Self-Filters Don’t Lead to Resolution
    Negotiators shape their message to achieve their goal. They might threaten. They might withhold critical information. Negotiators seldom admit the flaws in their position; they’ve filtered those out to make their case look as strong as possible.

    In mediation, parties have the opportunity to let their guard down. One of the most powerful features of mediation is caucusing. In caucus, only one side meets with the mediator. By statute, everything that is said is confidential. The mediator cannot disclose anything unless you authorize that disclosure. She cannot be subpoenaed.

    Confidentiality promotes candor. Parties can stop filtering their message and discuss the good and bad points of the case with the mediator. Here’s your chance to discuss the case with a professional neutral who can help parties identify the issues and resolve them.

    Reframing
    Mediating parties make demands and offers, and the mediator conveys them to the opponent. Part of this process often includes the mediator reframing the message to filter out animosity or extraneous issues. The mediator is using her own filters to enhance the likelihood of settlement. This focuses the parties’ attention on what is important for settling the case.

    Posturing
    Even in caucus, some attorneys will grandstand in an attempt to assure the client of their support, no matter how unreasonable the client’s position.  An experienced mediator understands the dynamic and how to use it to resolve the case.

    Maybe you think your opponent is the biggest jerk in the world. In mediation, the mediator can filter out that attitude to get your case settled.

  • Mediation During the COVID-19 Shutdown

    Mediation Is Critical Right Now
    Courts are closed. Attorneys and claims professionals are working from home as best they can. But disputes continue. If an employer is responsible for a claimant’s medical care, delivering that care during a “Shelter in Place” order is a challenge. How a dispute is handled now can determine how the case will proceed in the long term.

    Because courts are closed, litigating parties should make an extra effort to resolve disputes through negotiation. However, when they are unable to do so, agreeing to mediate is the best alternative. Issues subject to mediation can include conflicts usually resolved by motion, discovery disputes or entire cases. You can contact your mediator of choice by phone or text at 310/889-8165 or by email. She will take it from there.

    Two mediation options are available during the shutdown.

    Mediation by Video
    Your mediator can conduct a mediation while everyone remains at home through several applications, including Free Conference Call, Zoom, or Legaler. This can happen quickly– as soon as parties agree on a time and electronically send the mediator their mediation statements so she knows the basic outlines of the dispute.

    Scheduling an In-Person Mediation
    If parties insist on an in-person mediation, the time to schedule that is now.

    Once courts and mediation venues re-open, scheduling will be a mad dash to secure an available time. Cases already on the court’s calendar for a future date have first priority, pushing litigants with disputes cresting now further back.

    In contrast, cases with a date already on the mediator’s  calendar will get first chance for any other date if circumstances allow an earlier date or must be further delayed.

    You may be feeling frustrated as you see the conflicts mounting in your email inbox. There is a solution available right now: mediation.

  • Quid Pro Quo in Negotiation

    We’ve heard a lot about quid pro quo lately. But it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

    Quid pro quo is Latin for “this for that.” This is what negotiation is all about. In fact, the exchange of something of value, legally termed “consideration”, is a requirement for a contract to be valid. Settlement agreements are contracts.

    A good negotiator always seeks quid pro quo. Don’t give away something unless you get something in return. In mediation, parties take turns lowering demands and increasing offers until we reach settlement.

    The exception to this rule is if you were legally obligated to do something. Then it is improper to seek compensation for it. For example, an employer is legally required to pay the ordinary and customary medical expenses of an employee who suffers a work-related injury. In an ongoing case, it would be an improper quid pro quo to ask the injured worker for anything of value in return. The thing of value might be money or an agreement to do something in an unrelated context the worker would not otherwise do. That could include sexual favors.

    Parties can enter into any contract which is not illegal. Hiring a hit man to kill your enemy is not a legal contract, no matter the agreed amount of compensation.

    What About Leverage?
    Leverage is different from quid pro quo. A party has leverage in negotiation when that party has the better alternative to a deal. How badly does the negotiator need the deal? For example, an individual who needs money for basic living expenses is likely to accept a settlement of less than full value in order to expedite closure.

    In litigation, each party is negotiating to obtain a quid pro quo, a certain amount of money now in exchange for a release of the claim. When one party is in the better position to wait out the full life of the claim, that party has leverage. Frequently that is the insurance company/defendant. However, many insurers are anxious to close “old dog” claims. In that situation, the claimant has leverage and can demand more to settle. Uncertainty about how future events, such as medical treatment, can affect the value of the claim, giving one party more leverage than the other.

    Quid pro quo is the very basis of settlement—so long as each side is getting value beyond what the other party was already obligated to do.

  • Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men

    You’re sure to hear this phrase repeatedly in December. What are you doing to make it happen?

    Most readers of this message are professionals charged with managing disputes. You may spend a considerable amount of time strategizing how to annul the opposing party’s claims. That’s appropriate. It’s your job. But what practically every party involved in a conflict really wants is peace. Settling parties often say they are compromising in order to get peace.

    It’s also your job to achieve the optimal result in a cost-efficient manner. Mediation is a way to achieve that outcome. A trained professional neutral will work with all parties to achieve their own bit of peace– not just at holiday season, but all year round.

    HAPPY HOLIDAYS