Teaching Law Students How to Feel: Using Negotiations Training to Increase Emotional Intelligence

This article suggests that negotiation courses using traditional lectures combined with role plays and simulated exercises can be used to train students in understanding emotion and increasing their emotional intelligence. The article defines emotion and emotional intelligence; describes and analyzes one simulated exercise that has proven to be particularly potent in the classroom for teaching both the theory and practice of emotional intelligence; sets forth the rudimentary components of a possible curriculum for emotions training; and concludes with reasons why law schools and other professional degree-granting programs can and should make training in emotions a curriculum staple.