Negotiation & Advocacy

Effective negotiation is rarely about force, rhetoric, or theatrics. It is about preparation, clarity of purpose, disciplined strategy, and an understanding of human behaviour under pressure.

 

Advocacy, similarly, is not confined to courtrooms. It operates wherever interests conflict, power is unevenly distributed, or decisions are being made that materially affect rights, relationships, or value.

 

At Eddison Cogan Lawyers, negotiation and advocacy are treated as structured professional processes rather than informal conversations or tactical gambits. Our approach is analytical, deliberate, and grounded in a clear understanding of law, leverage, and consequence.

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What Negotiation Involves in Practice

Negotiation is often misunderstood as a single event- a meeting, an exchange of correspondence, or a moment of concession. In reality, successful negotiation is a staged process that unfolds over time and requires disciplined preparation.

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Our work typically involves:

• Clarifying objectives
Identifying not only the client’s stated aims, but also their underlying priorities, constraints, and non-negotiable. Outcomes are rarely binary; understanding what truly matters allows for more flexible and durable solutions.

• Information analysis and asymmetry management
Assessing what is known, what is assumed, and what remains strategically unclear. Information gaps often determine negotiating power more than legal rights alone.

• Assessment of alternatives and risk
Evaluating realistic alternatives to agreement, including litigation, regulatory escalation, or commercial disengagement. This analysis informs timing, tone, and concession strategy.

• Leverage identification
Legal rights, reputational exposure, timing pressures, commercial dependencies, and emotional drivers all form part of the negotiating landscape. Effective advocacy recognises and calibrates these factors carefully.

• Structured engagement
Negotiations may involve correspondence, face-to-face meetings, intermediaries, or staged proposals. The method of engagement is chosen deliberately, not reactively.Throughout, the emphasis is on maintaining control of process while remaining responsive to developments as they arise.

 

Advocacy Beyond Litigation

Advocacy is commonly associated with court proceedings, but many of the most consequential outcomes occur outside formal litigation. Decisions made in boardrooms, workplaces, schools, family discussions, or regulatory contexts often shape matters long before a court is involved.

 

Our advocacy work frequently includes:

• Representing clients in commercial, employment, and family negotiations•Acting in disputes involving neighbours, access rights, boundaries, nuisance, and land use

• Assisting in complex interpersonal disputes involving schools, safeguarding concerns, and institutional decision-making

• Supporting clients in situations involving imbalance of power, where confidence, clarity, and strategic framing are essential.

 

In each context, the aim is not escalation for its own sake, but the disciplined presentation of position, evidence, and consequence in a way that influences decision-makers effectively.

 

Timing and Intervention

Negotiation can begin at any stage of a dispute or relationship. In some cases, early intervention prevents positions from hardening and costs from escalating. In others, it is only once matters have deteriorated that structured negotiation becomes possible.There is no single “right” moment.

 

What matters is understanding:

• when engagement will be productive,

• when restraint is strategically preferable, and

• when escalation is necessary to reset the balance.

 

Judgment in timing is often as important as the substance of the negotiation itself.

 

Approach and Experience

Christopher Eddison-Cogan, our senior managing partner brings over thirty years’ experience of negotiating across commercial, employment, family, financial, and regulatory contexts. His work is informed by formal negotiation training as well as long exposure to real-world disputes involving lawyers, business owners, employees, creditors, banks, spouses, shareholders, and family members.

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While familiar with established negotiation frameworks - including alternatives analysis, leverage dynamics, and information strategy - his practice is grounded in realism rather than theory. Toughness is used selectively, not reflexively, and is balanced with careful exploration of the deeper drivers affecting all parties involved. In many cases, this produces outcomes that are both more favourable and more sustainable than positional confrontation.

 

Shareholder Advocacy and Board Accountability

We are currently developing a focused area of practice assisting activist shareholders in addressing concerns about board performance, governance, and accountability within public companies.This work arises where boards or senior management have failed to achieve outcomes that were planned, proposed, or publicly represented to shareholders. Engagement may involve:

• strategic shareholder communications

• negotiation with boards and advisers,•analysis of governance obligations, and

• advocacy aimed at influencing corporate decision-making without immediate resort to litigation.

 

This is a developing and sensitive area of practice requiring discretion, commercial awareness, and a clear understanding of corporate dynamics. Measured, Strategic Service Negotiation and advocacy are not about posturing or persuasion alone. They require discipline, preparation, and a capacity to remain clear-headed when matters are emotionally charged or commercially significant.

 

Our role is to help clients understand their position, identify realistic options, and engage with others in a way that protects their interests while remaining proportionate and effective.If you are facing a situation where negotiation, influence, or structured advocacy may be required, we are happy to discuss whether and how this approach may assist.