There comes that time in mediation that calls for the moment of truth. That recognition that everything is on the line and here is where you are standing. Recently, that came down to the look in their eyes when they saw my hand make a circle to depict “zero”, repeated emphatically, to demonstrate where they actually were standing right now, not at the millions in the wife’s head.
It helped that I had a senior company representative on the other side who gets ‘it’, who understood me when I said, “Find something to offer to him emotionally” and he did. He came up with back pay sufficient to reach the coveted 30 year mark at the company, complete with the ring, to allow this man’s service, and service to his country be valued.
It almost didn’t happen. This ‘ginormous’ company’s in-house lawyer was so pessimistic about his client “budging on the numbers” that he had already hired a very successful, and awesome, local counsel to undertake full scale litigation. In truth, I used this fact as a very persuasive reason to settle, so it actually helped me get this thing resolved.
Local counsel later let me know that the company’s lawyer was extremely complimentary about how I got the case settled, which is always nice to know. I like to leave both sides satisfied, if not with the amounts, then with being able to end it and reach a solution they can live with.
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