Becoming a Certified Practitioner or a Certified Energy Engineer
Becoming a Practitioner
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Transcript of Becoming a Practitioner
Becoming a Practitioner
Melbourne, 23 to 27 June 2014
The three-stage interview process
Interviewing
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Stage 1 Listen
• Let the client tell their story How can I help you? What can I do for you?
• Maintain eye contact• Take only brief notes• Interrupt only to encourage them to continue• Acknowledge strong emotion and adopt a
calming strategy
Stage 2 Question
• Seek the facts you need by questioning• Establish the client’s expectations and get their
instructions• Take detailed notes• Establish the chronology• Summarise the facts and instructions
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Stage 3 Advise• Ensure you have all relevant information and
understand the law• Discuss options• Facilitate the client’s decision• Outline the next steps• Record advice • Write to client
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Letter writing
Essential elements of clear writing
• Accurate and precise
• Complete
• Understandable to the reader
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Accurate and precise• Accurate means expressing meaning
correctly, exactly and without vagueness or ambiguity.
• Precise means making clear distinctions, defining things so as to distinguish them from other things.
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Complete• Complete means the document includes all
the information necessary for its meaning to be properly understood, without including unnecessary material.
• ‘The essential quality of good legal writing is clarity and the second quality is brevity - or as much brevity as the subject will permit’ - Sir Harry Gibbs
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Understandable• The document must be understandable to the
reader.• The key to making documents understandable
is simplicity, especially if the reader has limited comprehension skills.
• ‘Clearness is secured by using words that are current and ordinary’ - Aristotle
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Plain English writing• Writing in clear, plain English involves observing some
simple principles:– Consider your audience– Get to the point– Avoid pomposity– Use short sentences– Omit surplus words– Use familiar, everyday words (avoid legal jargon or archaic
expressions)– Consider document structure and design
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Structure of professional letters• Law firms will usually have a preferred house
style.• The following elements normally exist in some
form in a professional letter.
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Structure of professional lettersFile reference
Date
Addressee’s name and addressMs Vella Vaccaro14 White StreetBlacktown VIC 3278
SalutationDear Vella,
Subject reference e.g. Our recent meeting
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Structure of professional lettersOpening paragraph/s - e.g. refer to the previous meeting and summarise the purpose of this letter.
Body of letter - set out in separate paragraphs such things as confirmation of instructions and the advice given, the action to be taken and any requests for further information.
Closing paragraph/s – e.g. confirm the next steps, including when you will next contact the client and how the client may contact you in the meantime.
Complimentary close - Yours sincerely or Yours faithfully
Signature block - may include the firm name, your name , title and contact details
Enc. or Encs - note any enclosures with the letter
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Negotiation
Negotiation approaches 1. Position or adversarial bargaining• Each negotiator starts with a (usually extreme)
position and defends that position.• Parties trade offers and counter offers until
they agree on an outcome.• More suited to disputes between parties with
no continuing relationship that involve only money (damages).
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Advantages• May be relatively quick and cheap.• Effective in disputes when only money
(damages) is at stake and parties have no ongoing relationship.
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Disadvantages • Less effective when needs other than money are at stake.• Not good for ongoing relationships. You can end up with a
worse relationship than you started with.• Can be slow and inefficient.• Risk that one party will walk away. Options are then for both
to live with the problem, or seek a determinative resolution (by arbitration or adjudication).
• Often produces winners and losers. • May make an agreement under which parties assume
ongoing obligations less durable.
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Approaches to positional bargaining• The soft negotiator wants to avoid personal conflict
and so makes concessions readily in order to reach agreement.
• The hard negotiator sees any situation as a contest of wills in which the side that takes the more extreme positions and holds out for longer fares better. This approach often invites a correspondingly hard response from the other sides and makes it harder to reach agreement.
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2. Interest-based bargaining• Negotiators attempt to understand the needs and interests of
the parties.• Negotiators work jointly to develop options that meet the
needs of all parties.• The key question in interest-based negotiation is why
someone wants something, their underlying motivation. That question will usually lead to their most important needs and concerns, fears and aspirations.
• Parties in conflict often have several needs or interests. While the needs of each party may not be the same, they need not be in conflict.
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Positions and interests
Positions Interests
Things you say you want Underlying motivationsDemands Needs and concernsThings you say you will or won’t do
Aspirations and fears
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Considerations in interest-based bargaining• Separate the people from the problem - focus
on the situation, not who caused it.• Focus on interests, not positions.• Generate a variety of options.• Insist that results be based on objective
criteria (e.g. market valuation, efficiency, industry standards) and consider fairness or equity.
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The 5 stages of negotiation1. Preparation
• Thorough; anticipate what other side will seek; consider strategy (opening offer, trade-offs etc.) and BATNA
2. Opening• Establish rapport, process (authority to settle) and approach
3. Exploration • Set agenda; gather information; develop options; evaluate and
shortlist options• How is agreement to be reached?
– layered bargaining (agreement building). – conditional linked bargaining (‘juggling the balls’).
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The 5 stages of negotiation
4. Bargaining – the basic rules– Never give away something without getting something in
return - trade, don’t concede– Listen – Communicate clearly– Be persuasive. Support your arguments with evidence – Be patient. Avoid being rushed – Maintain your integrity. Be ethical
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The 5 stages of negotiation
5. Agreement– Reality test proposed solutions– Workable and better than BATNA? - when do actions need to be
taken by and do they require third party cooperation?– Durable - are the parties committed to it? What if circumstances
alter? – Confirm parties understanding of what is being agreed. – Establish what is to be done, by whom and when - establish a
timeframe for obligations to be carried out.– Put agreement in writing - record the parties’ commitments and get
them initialled pending the drafting of the formal settlement agreement.
– Sign agreement.25