I love facts. As a lawyer, mediator and an arbitrator, I so very much love facts! I love and respect facts because they’re elements of the whole cloth of truth. For example, the temperature gauge outside my window reads 76 degrees. If I read the thermometer correctly, that’s a fact. See the difference between that [...]

There is an old adage that some of us have probably run across. It is, “Don’t assume. When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me.” (For the uninitiated, look at the word “assume” and make the appropriate connections). But I think the real and more important reasons not to make assumptions [...]

This posting is about one of the simplest, yet profound lessons I have learned in the art of negotiation and communication. People are not mind readers. Although you might assume they know what you want, trust me, they do not. This means that typically you cannot rely on someone’s prescience to provide you with what [...]