To Focus on Principle or Principal?
Gary Marsh, a partner in Troutman Pepper's Financial Restructuring and Insolvency Practice Group, was featured on the Art of Negotiation podcast episode " To Focus on Principle or Principal?" hosted by Marc Siegel.
Key takeaways:
- When negotiating it is important to really get a handle on the facts early on: Consider time, cost, risk and client pain and suffering and then put it all together to come up with a reasonable sense of what is a fair settlement.
- Avoid drawing a line in the sand unless you genuinely intend to stick by it.
- Be flexible – things change and you'll need to adapt.
- Control anger when in difficult situations!
- Get all issues on the table at the beginning – if you have ten issues then you can know which ones you're willing to trade beforehand to more easily find common ground.
- Cases which involve raw human emotion can be the most difficult kinds of case.
- Trying to pull parties apart, rather than bring them together, can be a big mistake.