Professional Institute at WashULaw
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The Professional Institute at WashULaw offers business professionals and lawyers the opportunity to explore issues in contract management, negotiation, and dispute resolution. Offered in an intensive distance-learning format, each program is designed to offer timely analysis of legal issues in business and practical tools of immediate use.
The Professional Institute offers busy professionals the opportunity for rich and substantive exploration of discrete legal topics outside of a degree program. Each program meets over the course of two intensive weekend sessions with opportunities to collaborate with colleagues throughout the program.
WashULaw is a top-ranked law school in the U.S. and is a leader in distance learning in legal education. These in-depth programs build on almost 10 years of offering high-quality and rigorous legal education to business professionals in an online format.
The Professional Institute offers these programs:
- Negotiation: Skills and Strategies to Increase Value
- Contract Management & Negotiation: Mastering the Business Relationship
- U.S. Arbitration Law and Practice: Essentials for Business Professionals and Lawyers
- Mediation: Resolving Workplace, Business, and Legal Disputes
Tuition for each course is $995 USD with a discount for joining us for a second or subsequent programs. If several members of your organization are interested in a program or a custom offering, please contact us for alternate pricing.
For information contact:
Prof. Juan Del Valle (juandelvalle@wustl.edu)
Contract Management, Negotiation
Prof. Jim Reeves ( james.reeves@wustl.edu)
Arbitration, Mediation
Course Descriptions
Contract Management & Negotiation: Master the Business Relationship
This highly practical program is useful for organizational leaders, in-house counsel, members of contract management, project management, sales, human resources, and sourcing teams within any organization, as well as law firms. During the pandemic era, millions of contracts around the world have been placed on hold, and contract management skills will be determinant in resuming or restructuring contractual relationships according to the changing circumstances. The program generates understanding of types of contracts, drafting techniques and tips, contract negotiation, audit of compliance of contractual duties, contract renewal and extension, and business relationship strengthening through the use of contract management good practices. Thus, the program covers topics such as generalities of contract law, contract drafting and structuring, contract negotiation skills and special clauses, as a harmonic structure meant to control organizational financial and legal risk. The Contract Management & Negotiation program will include practical exercises and analysis of real cases where contract management failures deeply affected organizations.
U.S. Arbitration Law and Practice: Essentials for Business Professionals and Lawyers
Arbitration provisions in contracts have become much more prevalent as a dispute resolution process in business and consumer transactions. Often, we are not even aware that a transaction is subject to arbitration as the process of choice for resolving disputes. It is imperative that business leaders, attorneys, and consumers have a basic understanding of the arbitration process and the legal environment in which arbitration occurs. This program is designed to provide a solid foundation for understanding the critical issues involved arbitration from drafting and interpreting arbitration provisions, compelling and challenging arbitration, and understanding the arbitration process and the role of arbitrators in the process.
Mediation: Resolving Workplace, Business, and Legal Disputes
Managers and human resource professionals are often faced with the challenge of managing and resolving workplace disputes. This program begins with a discussion of facilitation and mediation processes in context with other dispute resolution processes. Participants are exposed to very basic concepts in negotiation, such as distributive versus integrative bargaining; and needs, interests, and the psychology of negotiation. The participants are exposed to the basic structure of the mediation/facilitation processes and interventions used by mediators and facilitators and gain an understanding of how mediators/facilitators add value to the negotiation process. Participants are able to apply theory to practice through simulated mediation scenarios. Finally, ethical issues in mediation and facilitation will be discussed, along with foundational concepts in assisting the parties to document agreements reached through mediation.
Negotiation: Skills and Strategies to Increase Value
This course will be a negotiation class tailored to a broad business and law-oriented audience. The course will begin with an introduction to the negotiation process, including needs versus wants, discussion of “value”, and univariable versus multivariable approaches. Importance of relationships and developing negotiation strategy, modes of communication, electronic negotiation (email, for example) will also be discussed. Participants will be exposed to the theory and psychology of negotiation and will have the opportunity to apply theory to practice through simulated negotiation scenarios.