For trainees and junior lawyers · English law

Negotiation Skills

A bakery renews its contract with the garage that repairs its vans. You help run the talks for the bakery.

How to prepare and run a negotiation, taught through one contract renewal from the first letter to heads of terms.

Kestrow's workshop, the garage that keeps the bakery's vans on the road, drawn straight on like an architect's elevation: a long, low shed that runs out of the picture on both sides, with low hills behind its roof. Four roller doors stand open. In three of them a delivery van is raised on a two-post lift, seen from the back; one has a wheel off, leaning against the lift. The fourth bay is empty: no lift yet, and on its back wall only a blank plate where a charger for electric vans will go. That is the bay the bakery wants opened by a fixed date, and the outline of its door opening is drawn in copper. Parked square in the empty bay is a child's battery ride-on van, plugged into an ordinary socket: the workshop's only electric vehicle so far. Beside the bays are the office window and door. No one is in the picture.

You will be able to:

  • Prepare interests, alternatives, a limit and a plan
  • Make, trade and record offers without giving ground away
  • Close with heads of terms your client can approve

10 chapters with tests · a final exam · a certificate · about 3 hours in all · published 21 October 2026

Start Chapter 1

Chapters

Module 1

Preparing

Module 2

At the Table

Module 3

Closing

One case runs through every chapter: a bakery renews its contract with the garage that repairs its vans. Read the full Negotiation File →

Glossary: every term in plain English · Final exam: 30 questions, open book