Stefano Riznyk is a businessman with a law degree, and as a result very practical. He thinks like a businessman and knows that people want to resolve their problems with as little cost as possible. While he is a trial lawyer, his skills as a high-level negotiator have saved his clients millions of dollars in what would have been wasted dollars spent in litigation.

He has resolved extortion of a prominent political figure, international kidnapping of a federal agent’s son, and career destruction of an actor, all without money changing hands. He routinely defends cases and settles them for far less than even the client expected. A pair of cases for $375,000 each were both resolved, against two different law firms, for $5,000 each with 6 months to pay; a $2.2 million dollar case was resolved earlier this year for $100,000, negotiated a $3 million judgment to $240,000, and the list goes on. This was not conducted with litigation: it was negotiation of a different level. Litigation is a tool for a negotiator. It gets the person to the table, as you cannot negotiate with someone who is not willing, and litigation helps with that.

Stefano Riznyk has lectured for almost every CLE (Continuing Legal Education) organization in the country and is in the process of writing a book. You too can learn the skills that he has learned in his 39-year career; but he didn’t learn them as a lawyer. He studied negotiation since the age of 18 and then created his own formula. It is a formula of many parallel parts; the better you know them, the more successful you will be.

You need to know the layers, and he will show them to you, and break them apart, piece by piece. If you think for a moment, you can read one of these books you buy with a “one size fits all” formula, you are bound for failure and will depend on luck; you are rolling the dice with your client’s future. You need to know your opponent inside and out. You need to be able to ‘smell’ the room and know who is who; not just the character they portray. These skills ‘can’ be taught, but over time they become instinctual.

Three lawyers of over 30 years’ experience have stated that his CLE was the single best one they attended in their entire careers.