Thensted used to tell his students that law was the only occupation in which its practitioners believe they have a right to belittle each other. Fifteen years later, Thensted sees his profession beginning to pull itself out of the battle trenches. With state and federal jurisdictions often demanding some form of mediation before a case goes to trial, lawyers often need a broader palette of negotiation skills to represent their clients. They have to go through a magistrate and if the magistrate hasn t settled it, I will get involved. Both, she says, would go a long way to help the nation s courtrooms, which are heavily burdened with civil litigation.
People think it is cathartic.
It is not. They really are given insight in negotiation from her point of view. Unlike the students she is teaching, Vance had little to no training in negotiation when she left law school in 1978. I was not prepared for the amount of posturing. Each group is team-taught by two instructors who give the students general directions regarding a problem or scenario.