Negotiation is one of the most important skills in legal practice. Whether advising clients, resolving disputes, engaging with opposing counsel, or closing transactions, lawyers are expected to negotiate with confidence and strategic control. Yet many legal practitioners negotiate largely by instinct, drawing on experience or intuition. However, effective negotiation requires a deeper understanding of how people make decisions, respond to pressure, process information, build trust, and manage conflict. Negotiation is now a highly interdisciplinary field, drawing on insights from behavioural science, psychology, communication studies, business, and dispute resolution research.
This webinar introduces lawyers to contemporary, evidence-based insights that can help them become more adaptable and effective negotiators across a range of legal contexts. Rather than relying on one-size-fits-all strategies, participants will be encouraged to think more flexibly about negotiation dynamics, including how to prepare for a negotiation, communicate persuasively, create value, manage difficult counterparts, manage impasse and navigate ethical dilemmas. Led by Associate Professor Dorcas Quek Anderson, who teaches and writes about negotiation and has more than twenty years’ experience as a mediator facilitating negotiations, this webinar will equip legal professionals with interdisciplinary tools to negotiate with greater adaptability and effectiveness.
SPEAKER
Dorcas is an Associate Professor of Law in the Singapore Management University’s Yong Pung How School of Law. She is also a mediator with Singapore International Mediation Centre (SIMC), Singapore Mediation Centre (SMC), Asian Development Bank and the Office of the Ombudsman for UN Funds and Programmes. Dorcas has been accredited by International Mediation Institute and Singapore International Mediation Institute.
Dorcas has more than two decades of experience as a mediator and in dispute resolution research. Prior to joining academia in 2016, Dorcas was a District Judge in the State Courts, where she conducted mediation and early neutral evaluation for hundreds of civil and criminal cases and published extensively concerning dispute resolution. She was earlier an Assistant Registrar in the Supreme Court and concurrently Assistant Director of the Singapore Mediation Centre.
Dorcas has conducted negotiation and mediation training for SIMC, SMC and the Attorney-General’s Chambers. Dorcas has also been training SMU law students in mediation and negotiation skills for the past 10 years. Dorcas’ research on dispute resolution draws inspiration from and seeks to inform dispute resolution practice. Her research has been published in leading journals including Harvard Negotiation Law Review, Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution and Civil Justice Quarterly.
FEES
| a. | Registration Fee
Registration fee of S$163.50* (inclusive of GST) applies |
| b. | Group Registration
Registration fee of S$147.15* (inclusive of GST) applies |
| c. | SMU Alumni (LLB / JD / LLM graduates)
Registration fee of S$147.15* (inclusive of GST) applies |
| | * Please note that there will be no refund of any fees should the participant cancel the registration/ fail to attend the event. However, registration is transferable. Notice of any change in participant should be sent to the Academy via email by 15 July 2026. SMU Law Academy reserves the right to cancel or postpone any event. In such case, we will arrange for the refund of fees paid. |
