Lewis Page Negotiates Business Disputes

Flexible negotiated resolutions

Most business disputes can be settled through negotiation.

Negotiation permits the parties to craft compromises that provide some gains and some losses for both sides. More importantly, the people involved in the dispute are the ones who craft the terms under which the issue will be resolved.

The legal system is not designed to deliver win-win compromises. When the dust settles after a trial or hearing, it is rare that both sides come out a winner. More likely there is a clear winner and a clear loser, or perhaps both sides lost. That’s because the litigants who invested in the fight did not get to decide the outcome. A judge, jury or arbitrator decided.

Often there is high value for a business in litigating aggressively. But sometimes there is value in negotiating a resolution quickly, less disruptively and at significantly lower cost.

Ordinary Negotiation or Mediator-Assisted Negotiations

There is nothing in the law that stops anybody from negotiating a dispute directly between the parties. It can happen at the start of the dispute up until a judgment is rendered and satisfied. Business negotiation between lawyers for disputing clients has resolved countless cases, and may still be the most cost effective way to resolve a dispute. There is a growing usage in litigation to employ a neutral mediator to assist in business negotiations to resolve the litigation. Mediation is undoubtedly effective at resolving many litigated matters. Parties contemplating litigation should be aware that the litigants will likely be ordered by a judge to participate in mediation before a case goes to trial. An early question from the mediator will be for the parties to review in some detail all prior efforts to settle. Read more about Mediation.

Business Negotiation Approaches

Objective-driven, respectful, based on fact and law, and tenacious.

Choosing the right approach to a business negotiation will vary by the dispute, the objectives of the parties, its economic effects, the parties and their lawyers, and other stressors the parties feel. Dealing with hostile prevaricating Rambo negotiators merely negotiating over large sums of money may require a different approach than dealing with disputing parties genuinely attempting to resolve a complex business dispute with respect, attention to the facts and law, and straight talk. Lewis believes in respectful professional relationships with other lawyers with everyone understanding that when the depositions, hearings and trials start, that respect will continue while Lewis uses every ethically permissible means to win. Every judge, jury or arbitrator expects a lawyer to give no quarter, but they do not want to listen to squabbling and nasty lawyers attacking each other.

Lewis prefers to negotiate based upon clearly-defined client objectives, unflagging politeness to the other side, support from the facts and the law, and patient tenaciousness. To find out more about business negitation, call Lewis.