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Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution

Strategic Negotiation Skills

Faculty: Randy Lowry and Denise Madigan

Lawyers, managers, and other professionals can learn the latest negotiation theories and techniques in this interactive, practical, and entertaining course. Negotiation and Settlement Skills evolved from extensive work with more than 40,000 lawyers and managers in forty states. Building on the empirical data from the fields of business, communication, and psychology, the course utilizes sophisticated simulations and case studies to create a conceptual roadmap for negotiation strategy.

What you will learn:

  • Four stages of negotiation
  • Characteristics of distributive and integrative bargaining
  • Three styles of negotiation
  • Recognition and management of mixed-motive exchange
  • Techniques of competitive and collaborative negotiation
  • Interplay between style and strategy
  • The strength of alternatives in negotiation
  • Negotiation tactics and how to counter them
  • Sources and uses of power
  • Avoiding conflict aftermath
  • The dynamics of multi-party, multi-issue bargaining
  • Evaluation of negotiation success

L. Randolph Lowry is president of Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1986 he founded the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution and was a professor of law at Pepperdine University School of Law until assuming his new position in 2005. He also works as a conflict management consultant to one of the nation's largest hospital companies and for five years served as board chair for two nonprofit health care organizations. A lawyer, active mediator, consultant, and internationally recognized educator, he is on the faculty at Vermont Law School and City University in Hong Kong.

Denise R. Madigan is with ADR Services, Inc., in Los Angeles, California, and was formerly with JAMS/Endispute for 10 years. She entered the field as an associate director for the Harvard-MIT Public Disputes Program in the early 1980s. Madigan received her J.D. from Harvard Law School (where she was on the Harvard Law Review) and has over 20 years of experience mediating a wide range of litigation and public policy cases nationwide. Areas in which she has mediated include complex commercial, intellectual property, high technology, financial institutions, insurance coverage, environmental and energy policy, employment (in both union and non-union settings), and many others. In addition to her full-time practice, Madigan has taught mediation as an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University School of Law for over a decade, and has taught courses at Hong Kong University Faculty of Law and City University of Hong Kong School of Law. She is a regular lecturer for the California Judicial College and more recently, Shantou University in mainland China, and has designed and taught negotiation and ADR courses for state and federal courts, government agencies, and numerous commercial entities over the past 20 years.