In family law negotiations it is important to identify all the leverage available to your client. Many professionals view the legal rights a client has as the only piece of leverage. A negotiator may identify their clients legal rights as bargaining chips to be traded in the negotiation process. Examples would be legal rights to property interests, right to child custody, right to parenting time, right to alimony, or the right to child support.
These legal interests may seem to overwhelmingly favor one party, but a good negotiator also realizes that there are often feeling involved that can be used as leverage to seek better settlements. Examples of this would be couples who still care about one another, parents who want what's best for their children, and parents who realize that the child will be living with the other parent as well. These parents do not want the child to live in poverty with the parent who doesn't have the dominate legal rights.
In conducting a mock negotiation in a law school class, I witnessed a negotiator feel helpless because the law was against him. The mock parents had instructions that they still cared for one another and the dominate party wanted to help the non-dominate. The attorney for the dominate party controlled the entire negotiation process and ended up dictating the terms of the settlement. It was obvious that had he used emotional leverage the outcome would have be dramatically different.
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