An interesting case study of how the power of being respectful actually works is best demonstrated by a legal case in the USA.

Lawyers have customers too, and not just the people who pay the bills.

• Wouldn't you like a lawyer who can successfully market your story to your adversary?
  
• Wouldn't that approach be far more likely to get a case settled quickly and to your advantage? 

The case study I'm referring to is between Julie Greenberg and Hank Mishkoff. Yes the study is USA based but it has implications every where and not to just lawyers.

Ms. Greenberg represented (or I should say, purported to represent) a chain of USA shopping malls called Taubman (like Westfield). A few years ago, she and Taubman went after Hank Mishkoff, who controlled a domain with the name Taubman in it. Her opening barrage was a classic lawyer's demand letter, very formal and threatening.

Of course, most people respond to a note like that with fear and trepidation and then anger. And it spirals from there, which it did in this case.

One of the issues I always impress on clients is … have you tested the response to that activity.

I wonder if your law firm has ever done testing as to whether letters like that are actually effective. In this instance what if she had called first, or sent a friendly, clearly written letter that outlined the mutually beneficial outcome for both of them?

Instead, Ms. Greenberg started mean and escalated from there. Classic litigator tactics, reflecting the concept of let's see who can write the meanest hardest hitting letter scenario. Obviously from Ms. Greenberg's view point this type of letter is a real winner with the recipients wilting at the knees in the face of this hard hitting approach.

Hank got his hackles up and took it to court ... defending himself.

In the end, he won.

It cost Taubman tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yet, it's clear to me by wading through the correspondence and court lodged documents that if MS Greenberg had been half civil in her first letter she could have ended with a win for at least 1% of what the loss cost her client (remember she made money out of it)

Even if you're not a lawyer (or especially if you're not a lawyer) the lesson here is pretty clear: it doesn't matter who's "right".

What matters is that giving people the benefit of the doubt and treating them with respect is not only more fun, it works better too.

Remember: You catch more flies with honey than you do vinegar!

You can read the entire story in detail here http://www.taubmansucks.com