Adapted from “How Much Should You Share?” first published in the Negotiation newsletter, April 2010.

The prospect of sharing information with a negotiating counterpart can be scary. Share too much, and the other side might conclude that you’re desperate to make a deal, any deal. There’s also the risk of giving away privileged information that your counterpart could use against you. A careful analysis of the pros and cons of information disclosure will help you approach talks with a greater sense of confidence and security.

Don’t wait for the other side to open up to you first. The advantages of sharing information during negotiation have been well documented. Thanks to the power of reciprocity, your counterpart is likely to match any information you share with valuable information of his own.

In general, you should feel comfortable revealing information about your interests in the negotiation, as well as your priorities across different issues. That doesn’t mean that if there are five issues on the table, you should reveal that you care about only two of them. Rather, stress that all the issues are important to you, but you’d have a hard time budging on two of them.

Here are some other types of information you generally should feel comfortable sharing, according to Georgetown University Law Center professor Carrie Menkel-Meadow:

Information required by law. Don’t risk getting into hot water by concealing information you’re legally or ethically required to disclose. Home sellers, for instance, may need to reveal known property defects to potential buyers. Research relevant laws and professional standards before you negotiate.

Information that requires “damage control.” Just as a defense attorney questions his client in court about incriminating information before the prosecution can raise the issue, the best way to handle troubling facts may be to come clean to your counterpart. For both ethical and strategic reasons, for example, a job applicant who was fired from her previous position would be wise to explain what happened to an interviewer rather than waiting for him to discover it during a reference check.

Readily available information. These days, information that was once difficult to track down—including financial and disclosure statements, legal documents, and news reports—may be just a Google search away. When deciding whether to share sensitive information that’s widely available, assess what would happen if your counterpart discovered such information on his own.