This course is co-taught by Deanna Pantín Parrish, Michael Chaffers, Lisa Dicker, Shane Hebel, Sheila Heen, and Neil McGaraghan.

Prerequisite: None

Exam Type: No Exam

*Cross-Registrants: Please note that cross-registrants interested in taking the Workshop must participate in the online application process for the Workshop. The deadline to apply is October 6, 2023. For more information please visit the course website: http://hnmcp.law.harvard.edu/application-crossreg/.

Lawyers—like all other professionals—must negotiate. Litigators resolve far more disputes through negotiation than by trial. Business lawyers, whether they are putting together a start-up company, arranging for venture financing, or preparing an initial public offering, are called upon to negotiate on behalf of their clients. Public interest lawyers, in-house counsel, government attorneys, criminal lawyers, tort lawyers, and commercial litigators all share the need to be effective negotiators. And all professionals negotiate within their own organizations for salaries, workload and roles, with constituents they represent, clients they serve, or co-founders they collaborate with.

Yet few professionals have studied the negotiation process or have any systematic understanding of why negotiations often fail, the dilemmas inherent in the process, or the skills necessary to be an effective negotiator.

By combining theory and practice, this Workshop aims to improve your analytical understanding of the negotiation process and your skill as a negotiator. The Workshop is designed to improve your ability to prepare for a negotiation, to engage others in joint problem-solving and decision-making, and to diagnose what is going wrong and what to do differently when negotiations break down. Above all, this Workshop will equip you to continue refining your skills as you gain more negotiation experience throughout the rest of your professional life.

The Workshop is intensive and time consuming. Because any absences deprive your peers of the chance to negotiate and learn, attendance for all class sessions is mandatory.

The Workshop integrates intellectual and experiential learning by combining short lectures with frequent exercises, extensive review, live and filmed examples, individual and small group reviews, and careful analysis of the negotiation process and the process of learning from experience.

The Workshop is limited to 144 students who are divided into six working groups of 24 students each. The teaching team consists of six faculty members; each Working Group is taught by one faculty member and one teaching assistant. All Working Groups follow a common syllabus that has been developed collaboratively by the senior teaching team.

In addition to participating in the daily activities, students will be expected to keep a weekly journal and to produce a number of short, written products throughout the term. This course has no final examination.

During the first week of the Workshop, upperclass and LL.M. students will be given an opportunity to elect to take the Workshop on a credit/fail basis. We welcome cross-registrants, who enhance the richness of the experience for everyone. For cross-registrants, the availability of the credit/fail option is dependent on the policies of their home school.

Note – Early Drop Deadline: The Workshop has an early drop deadline: Friday, December 1st. The course may not be dropped after this date without the written permission of the instructor and students who drop after this date will receive a WD on their transcript.