To tell the truth . . .

Presently I am involved in two disagreements that involve telling the truth and the consequences that follow. The first is a formal lawsuit that I am working on as a law clerk/paralegal/ fall associate (my job title seems to change by the day at work) that has a long procedural history. There have been numerous rounds of discovery including depositions and arbitration testimony - yet it appears that there may be evidence floating about that some of the defendants perjured themselves. The other case involves a dispute I am involved in, that is not a formal law suit yet, but may become one soon. In this case circumstantial evidence may prove that the other party involved is not telling the truth and has committed to a set of facts through a series of e-mails. Both cases have financial consequences to varying degrees if they are found out.

I've taken a sociology course or two about a decade or so ago, so here are my quasi-sociological observations on the matter. An event occurs that may be potentially embarrassing or have financial consequences if the truth comes to light. Information is either offered or requested about the event and a story is told. The story may have factual assertions or omissions that amount to something less than the whole truth, if not a complete fabrication. The underlying motivation is the hope that the other party will just take the story as fact and the issue dies.

To state the obvious, things get interesting when the other party pushes back with evidence to the contrary. A choice has to be made, if you are the "storyteller" - you can either throw up your hands and say "mea culpa" or dig in on your position and see what happens. If the process continues, the financial and, at the very least, emotional consequences escalate at every round. In the case of a lawsuit, the end result may be that the storyteller has to either backtrack on their previous assertions or perjure themselves and hope the other side does not have enough evidence to nail them for it.

The thing I often wonder is whether there is a way to shortcut the process. When a financial interest is at issue, the answer seems somewhat obvious - an offer to settle and no fault is admitted. If it is a more emotional issue (or the financial interest is tied to an emotional issue), the answer becomes much more difficult - at least to me. Each side has to do a cost/benefit analysis on "the truth" coming out. If the analysis is performed at a gut/emotional level, pride might get the best of either or both sides. If the analysis is done on a more analytical level the number of variables that one might have to consider could result in an unwieldy dataset. I suppose it really depends on the parties involved.

Maybe this is a question better left to the authors of books like "Getting to Yes," but to the extent that anyone who intends to do litigation (like me) is going to have to deal with the issue at some point, I'm interested to hear any of your thoughts on the matter. A third party mediator comes to mind, where anything discussed cannot be used in court (settlement negotiations), but how do you overcome the pride element? Anyone got a good approach they wouldn't mind sharing?

-Bzzz