Law Students Need More Negotiating Skills Training
As Erwin Griswold, dean of Harvard Law School, wrote in 1955, all law deals with human relations and practicing lawyers are constantly dealing with people who are under stress or strain of one sort or another. Despite this, Finnish law students are still not given enough opportunities to learn negotiating skills during their studies.
The latest Finnish report on the evaluation of higher education in the field of law refers to a career monitoring survey aimed at law graduates, in which graduates were asked to assess the work-life relevance of nearly thirty different skills and how they were taught during legal studies. According to the survey, university studies had best developed students’ knowledge of legislation. The biggest difference between the work-life relevance and the development opportunities offered by university studies was in the case of negotiating skills. The message was clear: negotiating skills are considered significantly more important in lawyers’ professional lives than the opportunities currently provided by university studies to develop them would suggest.
Legal work is often people-oriented. Lawyers participate in various negotiating situations with or on behalf of their clients, employers and other parties. In all these situations, negotiating skills are needed. With more skills in their toolbox, legal professionals are better able to prepare for, initiate, conduct, and conclude negotiations.
In Finland, law students are offered a diverse range of courses in negotiating skills. The content and methods of these courses vary from one university to another. Courses in negotiating skills may be part of the language and communication studies organized by the university’s language centre, and the groups are attended by students from several different disciplines. Universities do not have common pedagogical policies on the subject.
In Finnish communication research, the legal field has been highlighted as an area in which profession-specific communication skills are of great importance, but where the learning of these skills takes place mainly after graduation, when lawyers specialize as judges, attorneys, etc. However, learning through participation in a community of experts may involve the risk that the same routines and habitual ways of thinking are unconsciously transferred to younger professionals. Negotiating skills are best learned through deliberate practice, not by repeating old habits.
Research on the teaching of negotiating skills offered to law students has largely been conducted in North America; the first interaction skills course offered to law students was implemented in the United States as early as the late 1950s. There, negotiating skills are taught in virtually every law school, and they are considered to be a core area of the legal profession. Teaching includes both negotiation theory and skills, with the main emphasis on experiential skills teaching.
It is worth investing in the development of legal negotiating skills training in Finnish universities. Through better negotiating skills, we can enhance lawyers’ well-being at work and strengthen the credibility of the entire legal profession.
About the Author
Lottaliina Pokkinen is a doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Law, University of Turku. She has worked as a practicing lawyer for over 20 years, helping artists, authors and other creative professionals with their contract negotiations. Pokkinen has also written several non-fiction books about music business contracts and negotiating skills.
Publication: Pokkinen, Lottaliina: Neuvottelutaidot osana oikeustieteen opetusta Yhdysvalloissa – laadullinen tutkimus kotimaisen opetuksen kehittämisen tueksi. Edilex 2025/17 (published 13.11.2025). Permanent link: https://www.edilex.fi/artikkelit/100068.pdf.
Author photo: Marica Rosengård.
Heading image: AI-generated image (created with ChatGPT image generator, 2026).
