How the Big Boys Do It

In case you missed it, mediator @JerryRoscoe helped to settle the Dominion lawsuit at the 11th hour after it had been pending for more than two years since Dominion started the litigation.  Who is Jerry Roscoe you might ask. I have no idea, but I know this, he was someone both sides trusted enough to bring in at the last minute as a mediator, who finessed the negotiations while he was cruising the Danube River on a boat with his wife and was brought in only 24 hours before the case resolved.  The NYT described Roscoe as a veteran of the Balkans wartime negotiations in the 1990’s and someone who had recently settled a lawsuit where the parties were represented by the same two firms involved in the Dominion case.  The Times goes on to say that just as the judge was swearing in the jury in what would have been the most significant defamation case to go to trial in a generation “Mr. Roscoe came through with a breakthrough series of deal points that the two sides could at least work from giving the talks a new intensity…” (my emphasis added). The judge tried to buy time for the parties to settle, sending the jury out on a 90-minute lunch break while talks took place down the hall from the courtroom. Dominion’s attorney was mic’ed and ready to give his opening statement and call the first witness.  “That a deal came together at all was remarkable and unexpected.”  Roscoe would not share the particulars of the deal-making with the press or the public. No surprise there. Except to share that two things were working for him: “the looming start of the opening statements and the finalization of jury selection. ‘The jury’s presence changes everything, he said. ‘It’s a catalyst for decision making.’

Way to go @JerryRoscoe.