Do you think that in terms of lawyers, and you have been one, that there's an increasing understanding of the need for negotiation training? Are you met with any resistance or do you find lawyers are more open to training in that space?

I think that's a really interesting question.

I think the first thing I'll say is when I was a lawyer, I was never a disputes lawyer.

So there's quite a difference there to start with, I think.

But I think what's really interesting is I think among junior lawyers, there is an appetite for this sort of training.

and they're all quite keen to develop the skills.

I spent a number of years working at the College of Law as an adjunct lecturer there and teaching negotiation, and people loved it.

I know it's, sorry to put you on the spot here in a 40-minute podcast, but give us some highlights, if that's all right, of the structure.

And so if we're going to really take it to the next level when it comes to our negotiation skills, we have to be able to be persuasive and speak to the conscious and the subconscious.

I think what that raises for me is there's two levels at which we're playing there as well, because at one level we've got, you know, thinking about the rational decision.

You know, here's all the, the concrete reasons why this should be an acceptable outcome.

But then we've got the, the sort of more emotional, um, that needs to be dealt with.

And, you know, I could, I could probably be quite rich if I got paid every time a lawyer said to me, "Let's just focus on the facts here.

Let's not worry about emotion." But I think the other thing that plays in is the sort of cognitive biases that come in.

So even if we're just dealing in fact, because we are looking at things from one side of a picture, we are picking up the facts that-Help us.

... impartial by being aware of our biases and actively working against it as we mediate these disputes.