The above is correct. The outside attorney’s we hired for contract C2K were of little to no assistance. The ALPA attorney’s who deal with the NMB and airlines as a full time job did 99% of the work.
I also find that most pilots have no idea how negotiations are conducted. There is no big table where each side tries to outsmart the other. Proposals are exchanged via term sheets which each side takes back and everyone reviews prior to a counter term sheet being issued. The only thing done at the table is clarification of the term sheets. Those term sheets get reviewed by our negotiators, committee for the applicable sections and the professional ALPA negotiators. All work together to draft a response.
The last point is that one of the most critical items in negotiations is costing. The ALPA E&FA team works with all of the above to produce accurate costing for the term sheets. They are considered the best in the world at what they do and are often hired by airline managements to assist in audits and by non ALPA unions in negotiations. Delta rarely if ever disputes their numbers.