negotiation

- “You will cut the damn tree down”, one neighbour said. - “Not a chance!” answered the other. - “In that case, I have nothing else to tell you…” - “As you wish…we may also sit here in silence…”…

Readers who are experts on the wartime British Prime Minister or have recently watched “The Darkest Hour” may find the above caption familiar. Yes, it has been inspired by Winston Churchill’s famous…

Christmas Spirit in Air  It is hard to miss that the Christmas is coming, especially if you live in this part of the world. The streets of both major cities and smallest villages are decorated, the…

A whole day of mediation without a “joint meeting”. The only time the lawyers met was to begin drafting the settlement agreement. The experts played no part. The day before, the principals had…

So much to blog about this month. We had a really great time in Edinburgh with Ken Cloke recently. Ken kindly agreed to be our first Patron for Collaborative Scotland.  We held an event in the…

Negotiation teachers often scratch their heads looking for scenarios to engage students - something realistic, complex and with high enough stakes to motivate participants. Recently it came to me…

The U.K.’s decision to leave the EU and the voting in of the protectionist Donald Trump to the US presidency has drawn both the UK and the USA into the Nash Trap. U.S. mathematician John Nash (the…

Savvy litigators often tell their clients that “a bad settlement always beats a good litigation”. That may be partly because there is embarrassingly scant guidance in the literature, or even in the…

John and David Sturrock 1. Introduction Several years ago, while travelling back with my son David to Oxford where he was studying as an undergraduate, we discussed my work as a mediator and his…