Implementation Negotiation: A Transactional Skill That Builds on and Transforms Classic Negotiation Theory

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Session Type: Lightning Sessions

Session Capacity: N/A

Location: N/A

Room: Franciscan B

Floor: Ballroom Level

This lightning session introduces implementation negotiation, the specialized negotiation in which deal lawyers engage after the principals negotiate a transaction’s business terms. Classic negotiation theory guides these deal term negotiations. But once the parties agree, the dynamics, tone, content, and purpose of the negotiation change. Parties are no longer looking at whether they can find a way to agree. They do agree. Now, the lawyers must transform the clients’ bare bones agreed-on business terms into a contract that memorializes the parties’ joint vision. This is implementation negotiation, a new way of thinking about contract negotiations. Implementation negotiation theory does not displace classic negotiation theory. It simultaneously builds on that framework and transforms it to work in a different context.
This lightning session begins by reviewing classic negotiation theory and principles, then explains how implementation negotiation builds on and transforms those principles, including why in an implementation negotiation BATNA recedes into the background and why seasoned negotiators know the parties’ interests, issues, and the expected zone of agreement even before negotiations begin. The session concludes by briefly outlining the multiple subcategories of implementation negotiation and the implications of this new theory for legal education.