See you in court

Disciplines > Negotiation > Negotiation tactics > See you in court

Description | Example | Discussion | See also

Description

Threaten to take the whole thing to a higher authority or some public forum.

Suggest that some third party be brought in to mediate or arbitrate.

You can accompany this with either cool rationality or emotion and drama. Each will have a different effect.

Example

Right! I'm telling Mum on you!

If we can't agree here, then we'll need to involve the whole team in the decision.

That is just too much. I think we should ask Michael what he thinks.

Hmm. I think I am going to have to get the Union involved.

Discussion

In court, control is taken away from the negotiators, with a judge or jury making the decisions. If you believe you are more likely to win the case in this kind of environment, then moving to this will gain you advantage. If the other person knows this, then the threat of doing this will get them to concede more.

Court is a very public place where people's dirty washing gets aired. The thought of this loss of face can be very persuasive in getting people to think again about the agreements they are making.