“It’s outrageous, egregious, preposterous.”
As a lawyer in a mediation, this quote from Jackie Chiles, the fictional lawyer from Seinfeld, often entered my mind when I received an opening offer.
Because here’s the thing about extreme opening positions: they don’t make you look strong.
They make you look unserious.
When a number is so far removed from the evidence that it feels arbitrary, it no longer functions as an anchor. It becomes a signal. And the signal reads: we are not yet ready to engage with reality.
Once that signal lands, everything shifts.
The other side stops trusting. They hold back information. They stop negotiating in good faith because they don’t believe good faith exists on the other side.
Progress doesn’t slow down because the parties are far apart.
It slows because one side can no longer tell the difference between movement and theatre.
In mediation, this is particularly costly. The first hour — sometimes two — gets spent not on resolution, but on bringing the conversation back to the plausible. That time is rarely recovered.
Realism is not weakness. It is efficiency.
Starting from a position grounded in evidence doesn’t guarantee agreement. But it does something more valuable: it gives the other side a reason to believe the process is real.
“If realism is the fastest path to resolution, why do so many experienced lawyers still open with fiction?”
