This week, 24 UW law students will be testing their skills in the American Bar Association Law (ABA) Student Division’s negotiation competitions.
The student-run competition is designed to provide future lawyers with legal experience while they negotiate for a fictitious client and receive feedback from trained practitioners.
“It’s designed for students to learn about negotiating and that’s what lawyers do every day is negotiate settlements, whether you’re in business or litigation,” Kenneth Chestek, a faculty advisor for the negotiations competition, said.
UW law student and one of the vice-presidents for the board of student advocates with the ABA, Sam Laffey, is responsible for putting the local competitions together.
“Mainly my job is to find judges, make sure the rules are enforced, arbitrate problems if there are any, and generally, take care of all the minor details,” Laffey said.
The 12 teams, each comprised of two students, competed against each other in the preliminary rounds on Monday night. The four team finalists from that competition will go on to participate in tonight’s semi-final rounds while the two winning teams will then go on to the final round also being held tonight. The winning team will be guaranteed a spot in the regional competition.
“The whole point of this competition is to pick the team that will go represent our team in a national competition,” Chestek said.
To prepare for the negotiations, each team will receive a packet of general facts about the scenario that will apply to both parties as well as certain facts not revealed to the other side. After both teams have negotiated an agreement, the attorneys who are acting as judges will then provide feedback.
“It’s not trial work so much as it’s trying to take a set of facts and negotiate some kind of a resolution that is satisfactory to both sides,” Chestek said.
This competition is designed to give students an opportunity to experience what it might feel like to sit across from an opposing party and work out a deal that would be favorable for both parties.
Deborah Person, a law librarian and member of the law faculty for the competition, said they have been very fortunate to have attorneys and judges from around the state willing to act as judges for the competitions. In addition to playing the role of a judge, they are able to provide feedback on the performance of the students and share examples of their own real-life experiences and how they dealt with those cases.
“Our law school has a very solid focus on practice preparation,” Person said. “We have a number of clinics and practicing programs…we have a lot of opportunities for students to practice before they go out in the field. That’s one of our strengths.”
