I recently described how a good art education may help prepare the lawyers of the future.

Boston University law professor Mark Pettit has a different approach — he sings spoofs of popular rock-and-roll hits to help his students master contract law.

You can read all about it — and listen — right here.

(Hat tip to Lex Ferenda.)

Those of you who are teachers or students of negotiation are no doubt familiar with one of the field’s best known texts, Negotiation: Readings, Exercises, and Cases, by Roy Lewicki et al.

One of its exercises, “Collecting Nos”, is designed to aid students in confronting and overcoming what is for many an overpowering fear and a mighty stumbling block to effective negotiation: the anxiety associated with asking for stuff.

Asking is hard for obvious reasons. We worry that our request will be denied — rejection is tough. Or we’re concerned that we’ll be perceived as pushy or demanding. Or we’ve been taught that it’s rude. But that kind of thinking can get in your way of getting what you need — and keep you from being a good negotiator.

To complete the “Collecting Nos” exercise, you must make requests of others until you have collected 10 nos. My partner Moshe Cohen, who uses this exercise with his students at Boston University School of Management, further specifies that you are limited to one request per person and that the person you make the request of must have the power to grant it.

To vary the exercise slightly, if you get a “no”, ask that person again later on a second time. If they still say no, ask, “What would have to happen for you to say yes?”

In completing this exercise, people make two surprising discoveries: first, how difficult collecting 10 nos turns out to be — people are often much more willing to say yes to requests; and second, good things happen when you ask. Clients I have assigned this exercise to have reported negotiating better fee agreements with their own clients, salary increases, and even job interviews.

It just goes to show you that it never hurts to ask.  So why not try the “Collecting Nos” exercise for yourself?  Who knows what might happen.

(Source for “Collecting Nos”: Negotiation: Readings, Exercises, and Cases, Roy Lewicki et al., 5th edition, p. 570.)

A newly released paper (December 2007), written by scholars Hannah Riley Bowles, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and Kathleen L. McGinn, Harvard Business School, considers the “Untapped Potential in the Study of Negotiation and Gender Inequality in Organizations” (in PDF).

Here’s an excerpt:

The literature on gender in job negotiations helps to explain gender differences in compensation among managers and professionals. It also suggests explanations for the gender asymmetric distribution of other types of negotiable resources and career opportunities within organizations. This literature shows that, even before any interaction takes place, gender is likely to influence the negotiation expectations of those who control the organizational resources and opportunities as well as of those who seek them. Particularly in contexts in which resources and opportunities tend to flow to men—for instance, because the industry, occupation or organizational hierarchy is male dominated—the expectations for men to receive such organizational benefits are likely to be higher than for women, and prenegotiation expectations tend to predict outcomes. Even if men and women have the same aspirations, gendered behavioral norms may constrain women from negotiating as effectively as men. For instance, concerned about the social risks of negotiating, women may be more reticent than their male peers to request greater resources and career opportunities.

(Via Docuticker.)