Eight Killer Negotiation Lessons from Law Students

Kelly VanBuskirk, KC

This year, I challenged 18 extraordinary UNB Law students in the Strategic Negotiations course to conduct second level analyses of interesting deals. Not legalistic yawners, but real-life negotiations that they – the students – find interesting. This weekend, as I read their work on chalk and cheese negotiation cases involving everything from reality TV contracts and cheerleader pay to real estate purchases and emotional family split-ups—one theme keeps surfacing: power doesn’t come from having leverage… it comes from seeing and understanding the circumstances better than the other side.

Here are eight lessons that are showing up again and again in the students' work:

1. Build your BATNA before you need it

Your best alternative isn’t something you scramble to create after a deal collapses. It’s something you cultivate long before you sit down at the table. The best negotiators are often already building their next option while negotiating the current one.

2.  Ask “why,” not just “what”
Most deadlocks happen because people argue positions instead of exploring interests. “Why does that matter to you?” is the single highest‑ROI question in negotiation, and it is one you should ask yourself and the other side. It reveals hidden value every time.

3. Exploit bounded awareness—your counterpart has blind spots
Even sophisticated parties miss things. Overconfidence often creates tunnel vision.

4. Reframe constraints as value propositions
If you look closely, disadvantages often contain differentiation.

5. Unbundle and logroll
If a deal feels binary, it’s usually because the issues haven’t been separated. Often there is an opportunity to claim value in one area while creating value in another.

6. Use contingency contracts to test truth and create value
When someone makes a claim you can’t verify, tie part of the deal to whether that claim is true. If they resist, you’ve learned something. If they accept, you’re protected.

7. Reservation values evolve —yours and theirs
Your walk‑away point isn’t fixed. It shifts as you learn more.

8. Know when not to negotiate
As Kenny Rogers sang, “You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, and know when to fold ‘em.” Sometimes, the smartest move is to walk away. Loss aversion makes us cling to bad deals because we fear “losing” something. Recognizing that emotion in real time is one of the hardest—and most valuable—skills in negotiation.

The unifying principle
A common theme in the students’ analyses is that in most of the cases studied, the winners didn’t start with more power. They started with more clarity. Structural weakness is a starting point, not a destiny.

Negotiation isn’t about being the strongest voice in the room. It’s about being the most informed.