Finding Harmony: What Musicians Can Teach Lawyers About Business Negotiations

A jazz pianist, an Appalachian fiddler, a saxophonist, a dream-grunge artist, a folk singer-songwriter, and a choral director walk onto a stage. It sounds like the beginning of a joke, but that's pretty much what happened at Strathmore's recent Artists in Residence concert. Six musical artists with very different backgrounds and musical styles came together for an evening of performances that demonstrated how much gifted individuals can accomplish when they bring different talents and perspectives to a common project.

The artists performed their own creative works. However, bringing together musicians who don't ordinarily play together, particularly across different genres, probably required some new arrangements to reflect the new instrumentation. The musicians came from different backgrounds, genres, training, and approaches to music, but they found ways to bring their gifts together to create something that worked for everyone. The result was something that retained the soul of the original compositions while creating something more impactful than the sum of its parts.

As I listened, I thought about how much the musicians' collaboration resembled what I believe being a business and transactional attorney should be about. I view both law and music as both art and science. Although most think of music as an art, as a musician I must play the correct notes, in tune, at the correct time, which is very scientific. Similarly, my legal advice must be accurate, and my drafting must accurately communicate the parties’ intentions.

It’s not hard to understand how to make music artistic. Yet the artful aspects of law are often overlooked. This article is one of a series on The Art of Law and discusses how business and transactional lawyers should collaborate to develop creative, artful solutions to bring parties to a win-win situation.

Business Transactions Usually Aren’t Win-Lose

When people think about lawyers, they often picture a courtroom with two attorneys arguing opposing positions. People see a judge who decides which side wins.

While few litigators spend the bulk of their time in courtrooms, litigation comes about when something goes wrong, and the parties disagree about how to address the situation. At this point, the business relationship may be irretrievably fractured. The parties have picked sides and staked out their positions. As I like to think of it, they select attorneys and embark on today’s version of a medieval battle of champions (although the attorney/champions aren’t on horseback) until someone wins or they settle. Medieval battles of champions were brutal and bloody, and figuratively, modern litigation can be the same.

Some attorneys and parties view business relationships through a litigation lens. They treat negotiations as if they are on opposing sides in a courtroom. They pick their side, dig in their heels, and seem willing to fight for their position – even if that position is unreasonable or is fatal to the business relationship.

I view my role differently. I believe business and transactional lawyers should be relationship builders, not relationship destroyers.

Whether the parties are negotiating a commercial lease, forming a business or band, or entering into a recording agreement, they share a common goal: they are starting a business relationship. And presumably both sides want the relationship to work, even when they have very different ideas about what it should look like.

The result shouldn’t be a winner and loser. It should be a win-win agreement that protects each party's needs so they can move forward in a successful relationship.

Understanding Each Party’s Needs and Goals

What impressed me about Strathmore’s Artists in Residence is that they didn’t just focus on creating a terrific, collaborative performance. My guess is that the songwriters and composers had to arrange their compositions to work with different instrumentation.

I also saw signs that the musicians were attuned to each other’s needs. I saw subtle signs of this during the performance. At one point, a flutist’s mic wasn’t positioned properly, and the fiddle player sitting next to her, who wasn’t playing at the time, adjusted it. A pianist’s sheet music appeared to get scrambled when sitting on top of the piano, and the other pianist on stage reached over and adjusted it.

But the fiddle player didn’t give up the essentials he needed to perform his part. At one point, he switched violins, explaining that the piece he planned to play required alternate tuning. Everyone on stage had to wait while he moved his pickup to a different instrument.

Business relationships should work the same way. Each party has its own non-negotiable needs, which require sacrifice from the other party. And each party needs to be open to meeting the other’s needs, too.

When parties may begin with positions that seem impossible to reconcile, it’s often because they’re fixated on a proposed solution, rather than identifying the problem they’re trying to solve. My role as a business lawyer is to help the parties identify the underlying issue and find a way to meet everyone’s needs and, if possible, their wants as well, while keeping my client’s goals paramount.

Suppose a piano teacher wants to rent a location for their teaching studio. The landlord wants a five-year commitment. The tenant a two-year lease. Neither seems willing to budge, and the negotiations appear to be at an impasse.

As the landlord’s attorney, I know the landlord expects to invest a substantial amount in soundproofing the space so the piano lessons won’t disturb other tenants. The need to recover these costs isn’t negotiable. Typically, tenant improvements like this are amortized over at least five years to make the rent more affordable for the tenant.

I explain this to the tenant’s attorney and ask why the tenant is pushing for only a two-year commitment. The tenant gives two reasons: 1) their spouse is finishing a graduate degree and might not be able to find a job in the city, so they could have to move, and 2) if they do stay in the city, they plan to hire additional teachers and build the studio into a full-fledged music school, which will require more space.

With this information, the solution becomes apparent. We write a five-year lease but add a provision that allows the tenant to terminate the agreement early, after two years, by paying the landlord the unamortized tenant improvement fees, which would let the tenant out of the lease if they have to move and ensure the landlord receives reimbursement for its expenses. Plus, we add a provision granting the tenant a right of first refusal on adjacent space, which is currently vacant. This provision benefits both parties – the tenant has assurance that they can grow their business, and the landlord has some assurance that it won’t lose a tenant because of that growth.

Neither party got what it originally said it wanted, but both got what they needed. And they laid the groundwork for what could be a long-term business relationship.

Building Relationships

When people start a business relationship, whether it be a music group, an operating business, or a landlord-tenant relationship, they bring different expectations, priorities, and experiences to the table. They may agree on the overall goal of a successful relationship but have different visions on how to accomplish it.

The first step is to determine what each party truly needs from the relationship and which elements of each party’s vision are just things they want. Needs are essential to making the relationship work for a party, and they can be non-negotiable. Wants are things that would make the arrangement more attractive or convenient for a party, but a party with a flexible mindset can abandon them to help the other party get what it needs.

Taking the time to understand this distinction and each party’s unique situation opens the door to creative solutions to make the relationship work. Finding a solution that works often requires parties to work together and share their specific concerns. For instance, in the piano studio lease example, neither party had to abandon its underlying needs. Instead, the parties found a way to accommodate the landlord's financial concerns and the tenant's need for flexibility.

That’s why business and transactional attorneys should serve as both client advocates and relationship-building facilitators. But the creative approach that builds, rather than destroys, relationships can’t happen when the parties have taken sides and treat their attorneys like champions in a bloody battle.

Strathmore’s Artists in Residence demonstrated how individuals with different talents and creative approaches can create something remarkable together when they listen to each other, remain flexible, and accommodate each other’s needs. Although each musician is profoundly gifted in their unique way, it was that ability to collaborate that transformed the evening from an enjoyable concert into an extraordinary experience.

A successful business relationship isn’t all that different. The parties won't always agree, but with creativity and a willingness to understand each other's needs, they often can transform a pairing that at first seems incompatible into a successful venture.

Sometimes, the parties' essential needs are incompatible, and there’s no way they can build a working relationship. In those cases, the business relationship might not move forward. But by taking the time to examine their needs and goals instead of taking entrenched sides, they will still have built the foundation for a relationship and left the door open for a future collaboration.

© 2026 by Elizabeth A. Whitman

Any references clients and their legal situations have been modified to protect client confidentiality

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