The first draft is the employer’s draft — written by their lawyers, for their protection — and the space between that draft and a fair one is where negotiation lives. Not every agreement needs it, and the review says so when yours doesn’t. But when terms are improvable, the asks that work are specific, professional, and made once — and this page is the map of what realistically moves.
What Moves — the Reliable List
From live practice, the items that improve most often: the reference — agreed wording attached as a schedule rather than a promise in the air, frequently the single most valuable ask because it compounds into every future application; the announcement — the agreed line, internal and external, that shapes how your departure reads; timing — the termination date moved for notice, benefits or the new start; the forgotten entitlements — holiday pay properly calculated, notice properly handled; covenant scope — new or restated restraints narrowed in duration and reach, since fresh covenants in an exit document are a negotiation point, never boilerplate to swallow; the contribution toward your advice, inserted or increased; and the carve-outs — personal injury and pension handled consciously. The headline money moves less often for non-senior employees — but it moves where a claim has genuine teeth: the package is the price of your waiver, and a visibly flawed process or contrived selection reprices it. Deploying that value without declaring war — the claim named accurately, the employer left a dignified route to the better number — is where solicitor-led negotiation earns its keep.
How the Ask Is Made — and When It Stops
The craft: a short list of concrete changes with brief reasons, delivered in a tone that assumes the deal is happening — because it is; the employer’s currency (certainty, quiet, speed) traded consciously; and the choice made deliberately between solicitor-fronted asks and coached self-delivery — both run here, and the situation decides. What blows deals up isn’t asking: it’s ultimatums, second lists after the first was agreed, and overreach that signals a fight is coming anyway. Offers survive measured asks far more often than meeting-room framing suggests — the employer priced certainty when they decided to settle, and returning to uncertainty over reasonable requests defeats their own purpose. And the discipline that separates good negotiation from attrition: the stop signal — when improvables are secured and what remains is marginal money against real delay, when movement has visibly ended, when the start date elsewhere makes certainty king — delivered as plainly as the asks, because references and announcements are performed by humans who remember how the ending felt. Senior exits play a different game with bigger levers: that’s the executive tier.
Improvable Terms in Your Draft?
The review identifies the asks and their order; the negotiation makes them professionally - or coaches you to. Send the agreement today; the realistic map comes within 48 hours.
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