It’s no wonder that top venture capital firms, Harvard Business School, and the American Bar Association are knocking on Professor Clark Freshman’s door—for his expertise on emotion, lie detection, and negotiation.

“They want to know how to determine if a person is lying to them,” Freshman says, “which is a wonderful skill to have but one that eludes many people. Most people can’t tell fact from fiction. They might as well flip a coin.”

Freshman works closely with Paul Ekman, on whom Fox’s hit show Lie to Me is based; he runs Ekman’s lie-detection and emotional skills seminars for lawyers and negotiators.

“The good news,” Freshman says, “is that we can teach people to recognize emotions in their negotiation opponents—even when they are unconscious of them or trying to hide them. And this means we can teach someone to change negotiation tactics when he or she notices subtle signs that his or her opponent is getting angry or feels uncomfortable.”

At Hastings' Center for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution, Freshman works with Professor Melissa Nelken to produce cutting-edge scholarship in areas ranging from the effect of emotion on dispute resolution to the psychological dynamics of negotiation.