How My Friends Negotiate | Episode 12: Jonathan Lenzner

Professor Emeritus Jim Coben joins hosts Lela Love and Robyn Weinstein to share two mediation stories, each offering important lessons for practitioners. In the first, he describes a community-led effort to train Hmong elders in family mediation amid tensions between traditional cultural practices and American divorce law. A discussion about whether shamans should serve as mediators taught Coben that the community’s concern was not about religious neutrality, but the practical challenge of unpredictable schedules. He then talks about Vitakis v. Valchine, a Florida family law case in which a mediator allegedly pressured a party into accepting a settlement, ultimately prompting years of litigation over whether the agreement could be overturned. Although the settlement was upheld, the case illustrates how a mediator’s conduct can have lasting consequences for the parties. Coben and the hosts reflect on the responsibility mediators carry, emphasizing the need to respect party autonomy and understand the communities they serve. Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution at Cardozo School of Law

Jonathan Lenzner joins Andrea Schneider to discuss how his approach to negotiation has evolved throughout his career, from his early days as a prosecutor to his work in high-stakes government and corporate matters. He shares his first experience negotiating while serving on a jury, and how later experiences taught him that strong negotiation requires more than persuasive arguments. Preparation, he explains, means understanding the facts, researching the other party’s motivations and identifying the interests of all relevant stakeholders. Lenzner also discusses the importance of recognizing your own leverage and being thoughtful about when to cooperate, compromise or take a more forceful approach.  Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution at Cardozo School of Law

In this episode of Stories Mediators Tell, Professor Homer La Rue shares a story about a race discrimination case in which the employee made allegations of microaggressions and unequal access to leadership opportunities. When settlement seemed out of reach, La Rue to a risk and asked the parties to engage in one last conversation without their attorneys present. That final conversation allowed the supervisor to hear the employee’s experience firsthand and changed the outcome of the case. La Rue reflects on the importance of ensuring parties feel heard, the role of empathy and lived experience in mediation, and the need for greater diversity among mediators and other dispute resolution professionals. Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution at Cardozo School of Law

In this episode of How My Friends Negotiate, host Andrea Schneider speaks with Andrea Baumann Lustig, managing partner of Fischer Stralem Advisors, about the importance of listening in negotiation. Drawing on her decades of experience in wealth management, Lustig explains how helping clients examine their deeply held assumptions can help them make better decisions and build lasting legacies. She reflects on how her approach has evolved from talking and selling to asking questions, listening with intention and allowing clients to reach their own conclusions. Lustig also discusses the importance of trust, respect and patience, sharing lessons for young professionals who may feel pressure to prove their expertise. Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution at Cardozo School of Law

In this episode of Stories Mediators Tell, mediator and author Eric Galton shares two unconventional approaches to resolving conflict. In the first, he helps a university president experience firsthand the accessibility barriers facing students with disabilities, transforming a contentious legal dispute into a collaborative effort to identify solutions. In the second, he recounts taking two estranged law partners to a Buddhist temple to meditate, an unexpected turn that helped them reach an agreement after hours of stalled negotiations. Galton reflects on the flexibility and creativity required in mediation and the importance of fostering mutual understanding. Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution at Cardozo School of Law

Elliott Portnoy, founding global CEO of Dentons and now Global CEO Emeritus, shares what he has learned from decades of negotiating mergers, partnerships, and cross-cultural deals. Elliott reflects on how his approach has changed from seeing negotiation as a contest where the best-prepared person wins to understanding that the real goal is a lasting agreement—and, especially in mergers, the relationship that comes afterward. “It’s not about the merger,” he explains. “It’s about the marriage that results.” Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution at Cardozo School of Law

In a workplace mediation, an employee tells mediator Maurice Q. Robinson: “I want to be heard without being cleaned up.” When Maurice realizes that his carefully chosen reframe has softened her experience, he changes course—and the entire conversation shifts. This is a powerful story about reframing, neutrality, bias, anger, and the difference between helping someone find their voice and actually helping others hear it.  Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution at Cardozo School of Law

Andrea Schneider sits down with her friend Daryl Davis, award-winning musician, author, lecturer, and race reconciliator, whose extraordinary approach to negotiation has led him to conversations with Ku Klux Klan members and leaders. Daryl doesn't approach these encounters by trying to win an argument. Instead, he gets curious, builds credibility, listens, and looks for the human being on the other side.Daryl shares the story of the Klan leader whose racist beliefs were challenged by one deceptively simple conversation.Drawing on his life as a musician and the child of diplomats, Daryl talks about “harmony” and “controlled dissonance,” why replacing “you” and “I” with “we” and “us” can change a negotiation, and why credibility may be your most valuable asset at the table. Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution at Cardozo School of Law

What happens when a mediator finds one of the lawyers in the room truly loathsome—and realizes that her own feelings may affect the outcome?In this episode, mediator and scholar Ellen Waldman tells the story of an unusual breach-of-contract case involving a young couple, a failed kink magazine, and a lawyer determined to convince a jury to “run them out of town.” As the mediation unfolds, Ellen confronts the powerful emotions in the room and shares the technique she used to resolve the case.The case stayed with Ellen for years, raising difficult questions about mediator neutrality, the hidden forces that shape settlement, and the enormous influence mediators can have, even when they don't intend to. Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution at Cardozo School of Law

On this episode of How My Friends Negotiate, host Andrea Schneider talks negotiation with her longtime friend Indira Lakshmanan, award-winning journalist and host of NPR’s Here & Now. Indira shares lessons from decades of interviewing world leaders and reporting from some of the world's most dangerous places: do your homework, ask the right question, build trust—and know when it's time to walk away. Plus, she tells the story of the time she spent a day with pirates in the Philippines and discovered afterward that her translator had been negotiating for their safety the entire time. Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution at Cardozo School of Law Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution at Cardozo School of Law