I've never had a good experience with these kinds of clients.
Yes, occasionally emergencies or urgent questions arise with existing clients and cases, but if a potential client with whom I've never spoken before already operates under everything-is-an-emergency mode, I'm not even going to return their call.
Never worth it.
I don't get it.
We're LAWYERS, the quintessential negotiation profession.
Yet no one negotiates any more. Everyone just wants to go to mediation.
I understand that mediation is necessary and even helpful in certain situations. And, yes, a retired judge as mediator can really give feuding parties a dose of reality and facilitate a settlement. But this should be for situations where the parties have first attempted settlement negotiations in good faith and reached an impasse, not as an initial real attempt at settlement.
Instead, everyone just goes straight to mediation these days as step one.
I blame all of the negotiation books and negotiation gurus. These resources have taught everyone that:
"If you make the first offer, you lose."
"If you make the first offer, you start from a position of weakness."
"When you negotiate, just listen to the other side, never reveal anything."
"Never split the difference."
All of these so-called immutable truths about negotiation just stifle communication and impede parties from talking and negotiating.
So, instead of talking, we just keep litigating for 18 months straight until the mediation deadline and (often) wait for the judge to command us to mediate so that no one looks like the "weak" party who is asking for mediation.
Mediation is just a way to delegate communication to a neutral third party who can broach topics like settlement terms, compromise, etc. while allowing the parties themselves to "save face" by not looking weak or looking like the party who made the first offer or whatever.
I also blame assholes whose entire purpose in life is to make negotiation as miserable as possible and with whom it is actually impossible to negotiate. When dealing with dickheads like that, of course you have to go to mediation. So, for what it's worth, yes, as a profession, we need to return to some semblance of professionalism and remembering the human on the other side of the aisle. But this doesn't explain it all either. Even in cases where I have a cordial professional relationship with opposing counsel, they almost always prefer mediation rather than trying to negotiate, which brings me back to all of these ridiculous negotiation rules that have poisoned negotiation and stifled communication.
I wonder if part of it is also attorneys who are worried about liabilty or clients who second guess (a genuine concern). During mediation, a retired judge has firmly told their client that "This is a fair deal--your lawyer did a good job advocating for you." That way, the clients are happy (or at least tolerating a settlement) without wondering if they could've gotten a better deal with a different lawyer. But, of course, no lawyer wants to say "Hey, let's do mediation, my client is obstinate and not realistic, and we need a judge to put the fear of god into him." No one wants to actually say that because then you look weak and people worry they lose their negotiating power.
Anyway, thanks for coming to my rant. I'm curious what you think. Am I the only one who finds this ridiculous?
I swear . . . the rage of a thousand suns . . .
Just check your messages and delete them after you've checked them! How hard can it be!?!?
I don't even return the calls anymore.