Scott Becker previously served on the McGuireWoods LLP Board of Partners and served for nearly 15 years as chairman of the firm’s national Healthcare department. McGuireWoods has one of the best regarded healthcare practices in the world. Scott is the Founder and the Publisher of Beckers Healthcare and Beckers Hospital Review and its related events and publications. Mr Becker remains the Publisher and Chief Content Officer of Beckers HealthCare. Scott also produces the Becker Group Business News, the Becker Private Equity Podcast, and the Becker Business Podcast. Mr Becker is a Harvard Law School Graduate and a University of Illinois undergraduate business school graduate in Finance and Accounting. He is also the author of four books and a CPA.

Key takeaways:

• Simplify your goals and objectives: What is your side looking for in the simplest terms? This provides clarity.
• People can go into negotiations without really knowing what they want, and this can make things messy. Make sure everyone on your team is on the same page.
• A balance of working side by side with other professionals and learning the academic side of negotiation is key.
• You can’t do a good deal with bad people.
• People generally want a fair amount of money and a good working relationship, not necessarily the most amount of money.
• Private equity has been democratized in recent years to some degree.
• A client needs to understand what their core goals are and how they will impact the deal. 
• What are the important and unimportant issues? You don’t be a ‘killer’ on every issue!

1:50

How did you hone your negotiation skills?

3:40

How do you do things differently from others in your field?

5:30

How to deal with mixed messages from your own team in health care negotiations?

9:10

Hardest types of health care deals to negotiate?

12:30

How to expand the pie when money seems like a zero-sum proposition?

13:50

Hardest matters to deal with in private equity?

17:20

Are private equity valuations going up?

18:35

Common mistakes lawyers make in private equity deals?

21:50

Common mistakes in health care work?

24:40

Typical non-economic terms in health care?

26:30

Dealing with difficult clients?

29:36

When do you decide to mediate?

30:40

Dealing with impasse?

31:40

Settlement privileges?

32:36

Take it or leave it deals?

34:40

How does media involvement and publicly available information affect a deal?

37:50

Final remarks