Let’s face it, lawyers aren’t traditionally considered the warmest bunch. Litigators are hired to be advocates for their clients and litigation is, at its core, an adversarial system. Almost every case will involve disputes with opposing counsel, and resolution of these disputes can sometimes be achieved through successful meet and confer efforts. But often you don’t need to go guns blazing into every meet and confer in order to achieve the best result for your client.

So how can you achieve good outcomes in your meet and confer while keeping the temperature of the conversation cool? To answer this question, I polled a few lawyers for their biggest pieces of advice regarding meet-and-confer strategy and added a few things I’ve also learned along the way. No two matters are the same, and each meet and confer is likewise unique, but these are some overarching principles that apply to the majority of situations.

Don’t Start With Defeat