Skiflul negotiation is like making magic happen, and a good lawyer is a magician who arrives at an agreement that would have seemed impossible to pull out of the top hat just a few moments ago. But, like any skill, it requires consistent training and learning. As a result, in this article, we will look at the most used tactics that your lawyer might employ to win your personal injury settlement.
1. Strategic Silence
Sometimes, people let out more than they should when they are caught in the spur of the moment. Good lawyers know when to sit back and listen to the people around them. They’ll know how to pluck valuable information from any meeting and make it seem like they are pulling it out of thin air –like magic!
Having an articulate, well-spoken lawyer who can keep their ground is important. However, a great lawyer would know how to hunt down and let it all unravel before them. As such, caught in a reflective and calculated silence, they can figure out which threads should be pulled and how it would be the most favorable.
2. Playing for “All or Nothing”
This strategy requires honed skill and experience. Your lawyer has to understand very well what your needs are and how the result of the ensuing settlement can fulfill them. For that, they must be aware of you and your counterpart’s possible offer to play the card “we are ready to take this to trial at any moment.” But it has to be done very convincingly.
That is essentially called “maximizing the leverage.” If they are apt to maximize your leverage, they can draft a most advantageous settlement for you. Basically, it is a tho and fro of sending mixed signals between your lawyer’s real intention and what they aim to achieve.
But, as mentioned, it has to be done well. Otherwise, they ran the risk of being called on their bluff. In the worst-case scenario, the opposition may catch a whiff of the tactic, try to reverse it, and then force it down on you.
3. Finding the Terms that are “Fair and Reasonable”
A settlement has to be built on something, does it not? It has to have a standing ground from which the lawyer can start to argue over the broad details to the finer points of contention. But for that, lawyers must first settle over what can be considered objectively “fair and reasonable.”
Let’s take the example of a Connecticut personal injury lawyer involved in a settlement related to an auto accident. And maybe in that particular case, they have to negotiate by starting from the “objective” facts of what is agreed to be where the accident happened and the damage done to the cars. If they can boil it down to as many “fair and reasonable” terms as possible, they can build a pretty advantageous path for you toward a favorable settlement.
4. The Psychological Dynamic and the Physiological Clues
Negotiation is done between humans, and if there is a truth in the world is that people betray their thoughts through the signs that their body language sends. As a result, an eagle-eyed lawyer would look for non-verbal signs. A great lawyer would be very careful to take in how they react when your lawyer is making a proposal or arguing a point. Any sign of flinching, stuttering, mumbling, or long pausing will indicate an underlying message that would spotlight the other party’s feelings. In that way, your lawyer can grasp the flow of the discussion simply by keenly observing the procedure.
Bottom Line
Ideally, the result of your personal injury settlement for the damages you incurred as a victim of negligence will satisfy you, in parts, if not fully. But that can only happen if you have a good lawyer with the experience and the expertise to employ tactics to get you the most out of the situation.
They should know when it’s time to speak or keep silent. It is also significant if they can ease the opposition into believing you are prepared to go straight to the court if your unmet needs are. Finally, they should be anchored into the present and know how to research real-life statistics and read the body language of the opposition.
