The Number One Tip for Negotiating
David Spooner's been the Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Chief Negotiator at the Office of the USTR, and most recently, he joined Barnes & Thornburg as partner from Squire Sanders. In honor of his former chief negotiator role, we asked for his best negotiating tip. David says to get away from the table. A couple of times when parties couldn't agree, it helped to get dinner and drinks and build the relationship in a more informal setting.
In David's new office, we snapped a poster of the Central America Free Trade Agreement he helped negotiate, near a spoon—a gift from colleagues at the USTR's office. Now the international trade attorney represents governments, trade associations, and corporate clients, along with working on lobbying before Congress, the executive branch, and foreign governments.
As assistant secretary of commerce for import administration, David headed US enforcement of trade remedy laws and chaired US-China talks on macroeconomic reforms. (We snapped him with fellow former Squire Sanders colleague Christine Sohar Henter.) He's working on a case over aluminum extrusions imported from China, which has gone up the the Federal Circuit. Briefs are due mid-summer.
