Learning the Art of Negotiation

At the top of the pack were, in first place, Cassidy Jensen ’26 and Skyler Rehbein ’27; in second place, Andrew Cegielski ’25 and Katie England ’25; and third place went to Quinn Webster ’25 and Sean Tytka ’25.

Beyond bragging rights, the top teams are eligible to represent Buffalo in competition against other law schools. UB School of Law sends teams each year to the New York State Bar Association competition held in New York City; the American Bar Association’s regional competition; and international competitions held in Vienna and, in some years, Paris.

Students that want to acquire a deeper skill-set of creative and effective negotiation skills take the law school’s Mediation Clinic, which Sugarman also teaches. Often working in pairs, students mediate actual cases in small claims court, and observe mediations and settlement conferences in EEOC cases as well as in commercial and various Family Court cases. They then journal these experiences and have a weekly seminar to discuss these and everything else mediation, including the ethics of the practice.

 “Mediation is simply assisted negotiation,” says Sugarman, whose private practice is built around mediation. “If you’re trained in and practice mediation, you’re going to be a better lawyer-negotiator, because serving as the neutral mediator you can learn from the effective and ineffective negotiation strategies that the parties and their attorneys use.

"Learning mediation and mediation attorney advocacy, students hone more effective listening skills, culling out their client’s and the others side’s true interests and concerns that are beneath their position in a conflict. I ask students, why would the other side want to settle a case that only meets your client’s goals and interests and not their own client’s? So, you MUST try to use the mediator and your own communication skills to bring down the temperature in the room and focus on interests beneath both sides’ positions if you are going to come to a mutually acceptable agreement. I also tell them, if you play hardball, the other side will mirror you and you will get nowhere. But if you give away the ranch to be nice, what kind of an attorney are you?  So what is the sweet spot, the proverbial win-win?”

Students also have the opportunity to observe and participate in mediations coming out of whistleblower cases brought to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The students take turns serving as co-mediator with Sugarman, who’s certified to lead mediations in federal court, while their mediation clinic colleagues observe via Zoom.

One such case this past spring lasted eight hours, and in the end came to a successful conclusion. Sugarman, with students alternating in to co-mediate with him, met the parties with their lawyers both in joint session and in caucus (each side separately).

“There were points when I felt it was not going to work out, that one party was pretty ready to leave,” says third-year student Ciara Harrington, one of the student mediators. “Everyone was very tired after it was over, but it seems like everyone was OK with the outcome. There was not a huge winner or a huge loser, and that was the best-case scenario.”

Her classmate Jonah Weiss found that managing the principals’ emotions was a huge part of the process. “The emotional part is significant,” he says. “If you’re an employee and you’re dedicating your life and time to that company, it’s hard finding yourself in that situation. It was kind of tricky toeing that line.

“Obviously they had built up some animosity toward their employer, and it was more emotional for them. But we wanted to be sure that each person’s experiences and emotions were talked about meaningfully. We kept everybody at the table, which is so important. And we were very happy to help them reach a settlement.”

Mediation Clinic students who have taken part in the Representation in Mediation Competition and that have a preliminary mediation or ADR course also can graduate with a new recognition: certification acknowledging that they have completed the 24 hours of training that New York State requires for those who work as mediators in basic cases in the state court system.

Some graduates will accompany future clients to mediations as lawyer- advocates; others may possibly serve as mediators themselves in private practice or take on mediation cases for pay or pro bono through the courts or through dispute resolution nonprofits like Buffalo’s Center for Resolution and Justice.  Participation in the competition or the Mediation Clinic, Sugarman says, will serve them well for these endeavors.