The Myth of the Gladiator and Law Students' Negotiation Styles

"Shark." "Hired gun." The popular view is that lawyers are, by and large, cut-throat competitors who take the ethical obligation of zealous advocacy on behalf of their clients to the extreme, heedless of the cost to others or to society as a whole. The adversarial system (with its winners and losers), law school teaching, and the portrayal of lawyers in popular media, all feed this stereotype. The focus on litigation promotes misperceptions about what most lawyers actually do. Lawyers make deals and resolve virtually all litigated matters short of trial, often through negotiation.

Studies of lawyers' behavior in negotiation over the last twenty-eight years have consistently shown that, contrary to popular stereotypes, the majority of practicing lawyers are not competitive negotiators. These studies also show that "cooperative," or "problem-solving," negotiators are considered to be effective more often than competitive negotiators.