The goal here is to teach you how to use spreadsheets to automate decision tree calculations used to quantify your client's Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement or BATNA.

Readings:
M. McDiarmid, Lawyer Decision Making:  The Problem of Prediction, 1992 Wis. L. Rev. 1847
H. Raiffa, Decision Analysis:  Introductory Lectures on Choices Under Uncertainty (1968).
R. Fisher, W. Ury and B. Patton, Getting to Yes:  Negotiating Agreement without Giving In  2nd Ed. (1991)
www.mindtools.com/dectree.html

For a step-by-step discussion of how to create a BATNA spreadsheet, go to:

http://www.wvu.edu/~lawfac/mmcdiarmid/

Click on on-line lessons under Negotiation.

The demonstration problem used here is based on the facts in MacIntyre v. Easterfield found in R. Burns, S. Lubet & R. Moberly, Problems and Materials in Evidence and Trial Advocacy (5th ed 2010)