Beyond the barriers: working on non-material needs

Mediators, negotiating lawyers and the professionals at the Collaborative Practice table know how important it is to bring out the parties’ interests and needs. One of the hardest challenges is bringing out non-material needs and turning them into concrete answers for the parties. Non-material needs cannot be measured, and for this reason we too often fail to recognise them. And there is more: non-material needs worry us, because they are hidden in emotions, a delicate ground professionals are often reluctant to venture into. Yet we know, as lawyers of the parties or as mediators, that clients’ non-material needs, if not heard, can lead to deadlock. In this course we will explore the importance of non-material needs. We will see how we can prompt and facilitate conversations with the parties to let them surface and turn them into requirements that can be met in practice.