I saw a blog on the Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School’s web page written by its staff (January 12, 2017) entitled “How Mood Affects Negotiators”. It caught my attention because I had just witnessed this effect in two of my mediations.
Recently, I held two mediations on the same day- one in the morning and one in the afternoon with the same plaintiff’s and defense counsel. The only new party in each mediation was the actual plaintiff. All of the other participants were “repeat players”.
The first mediation took a little longer than expected, and the parties settled for much less than what Plaintiff and counsel had initially hoped, and for much more than the defendant had wanted to pay. In short, both the parties and their respective counsel were not happy with the settlement but were glad that the matter was resolved. Further, much emotional energy was expended in resolving the matter by all of the “repeat players”.
