Once a year, the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School selects an outstanding individual who embodies what it means to be truly great negotiation case studies examples. To earn the Great Negotiator Award, the honoree must be a distinguished leader whose lifelong accomplishments in the field of dispute resolution and negotiation have had compelling and lasting results.
To help students and professionals learn valuable lessons from these highly skilled negotiators, our Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC) offers the Great Negotiator Series featuring in-depth negotiation case studies such as Stuart Eizenstat: Negotiating the Final Accounts of World War II and Lakhdar Brahimi: Negotiating a New Government for Afghanistan.
Stuart Eizenstat: Negotiating the Final Accounts of World War II – Featured Negotiation Case Study
This factual case study examines former EU Ambassador, Deputy Treasury Secretary, and Special Representative to the President Stuart Eizenstat’s career as a negotiator, with special emphasis on his work negotiating reparations for victims of the Holocaust. As a result of these efforts, Eizenstat received the Program on Negotiation’s 2003 Great Negotiator Award.
Designed to spark class discussion, this case study features a variety of strategic issues including:
- Facilitating negotiations among multiple governments and industries
- Addressing volatile and important issues such as reparations for slave and forced labor, confiscated property (including looted art and frozen bank accounts), and unpaid insurance policies
- Handling large dollar value settlements – ultimately, $8 billion for victims of the Nazis
- Exploring new approaches to the search for justice to right historical wrongs
This case may be used alone or in conjunction with the Great Negotiator 2003: Stuart Eizenstat video, available separately. Here is a short clip from that video:
Lakhdar Brahimi: Negotiating a New Government for Afghanistan – Featured Negotiation Case Study
This factual case study examines former U.N. Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi’s involvement in negotiating an interim Afghan government after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. As a result of these efforts, Brahimi received the Program on Negotiation’s 2002 Great Negotiator Award.
With this enlightening case study, participants explore issues such as:
- Negotiating an interim Afghan government as the first step toward peace and stability
- Creating a sustainable new central government by convincing the victors in war to share power with others in Afghanistan – and with each other
- Harnessing the often conflicting self-interests of the country’s powerful neighbors, allies and adversaries in the service of these goals
- Making the case for peace instead of conflict
This case may be used alone or in conjunction with the Great Negotiator 2002: Lakhdar Brahimi video, available separately. Here is a short clip from that video:
Take your training to the next level with the TNRC
The Teaching Negotiation Resource Center offers a wide range of effective teaching materials, including
- Over 200 role-play simulations
- Critical negotiation case studies
- Enlightening periodicals
- More than 30 videos
- 100-plus books
Most TNRC materials are designed for educational purposes— for use in college classrooms or corporate training settings. TNRC negotiation case studies, role-plays and exercises help mediators and facilitators introduce their clients to a process or issue and help individuals who want to enhance their negotiation skills and knowledge.
Negotiation case studies introduce participants to new negotiation and dispute resolution tools, techniques and strategies. Videos are also a helpful way of introducing viewers to key concepts, and TNRC books, role-play simulations, and periodicals address the theory and practice of negotiation and conflict management.
Check out all that the TNRC has in store >>
Originally published in 2014.
Case
A partner in your law firm has come to you for advice involving her representation of a 32-year old professional basketball player injured in a serious automobile accident where he tore his Achilles heel. There is a good chance that he will never be able to play professional basketball again, and his rehabilitation will take many months. At the time of this accident, the player was making Taka5,000,000.00 a year and would be a free agent at the end of the season where he might be able to command taka10,000,000.00 a year. Although the player was a passenger at the time of the accident, he had given the driver some marijuana, and they were both smoking it at the time of the accident. Fortunately, no arrests were made, and the player thinks no one knew about the marijuana. The player is looking for taka500,000 for medical expenses, taka100,000,000 in lost future earnings, and taka20,000,000 for pain and suffering. The partner tells you that the liability is reasonably certain since the player was a passenger, but there is a question about damages because the player had an earlier Achilles heel injury in college that had been repaired. There is also the question of contributory negligence since the player had supplied the marijuana to the driver.
Although there has been some discovery, the defendant has not yet learned of the marijuana use, but the partner thinks it is only a matter of time that the defendant will discover this.
Although the trial is not scheduled to start for at least six months, the partner fears that the defendant is on the verge of discovering the marijuana use and that his will substantially diminish the recovery. The partner tells you that the defendant’s lawyer called today and proposed submitting the case to some form of alternative dispute resolution. The partner tells you that she does not know much about ADR. She asks you do some research and prepare and fax a memorandum to her that will help her decide how to respond to the defense lawyer’s proposal. Specifically she asks you to deal with the following questions:
Which method would you recommend trying first stating the reasons for that recommendation? i am support the basketball player. i am with him. how can i save him? i am against the driver. so now what can i do? please give me a solution quickly.