Two teams from the University of Wisconsin Law School recently placed first in two different LawMeets moot competitions, with a third team garnering a third place overall. All students were participating in the LawMeets moot competitions on transactional law, held on March 6 at Duke Law School and March 26 at Denver Law School. All competitions were held virtually.

At the Duke Law School competition, students Carla Gracia, James C. Paprocki, and Benjamin Eastman placed first overall and won best draft. Another student team, comprised of Megan Christopher and Gretchen Winkel, placed third overall.

At the Denver Law School competition, students Connor Muth, Alexa Thomas, and Seynabou Youm placed first place overall.

The teams were coached by Mike Anderson, chief legal officer and senior vice president at CUNA Mutual Insurance Group, and Professor Yaron Nili.

This is the fourth year that UW Law has participated in the annual competition, which allows students to experience first-hand how transactional work is conducted in practice.

 “Whether it was drafting or negotiating complex deal documents, it was so rewarding to see our students put their newfound knowledge into practice and to gain high placements in the competition,” said Professor Yaron Nili.

Prior to the competition, the teams spent several months learning about the transactional issues that the case posed. The teams prepared a proposed draft agreement and provided markups on an agreement submitted by a team from another law school. They communicated with mock clients and adjusted their draft to address client needs. 

“Through this competition and the months of prep work, our students gained in-depth knowledge about complex transactional issues,” said Nili. “Given the challenges of the pandemic, it was especially wonderful to see how engaged our students are and how much they learned from this experience.”

This year’s achievements are a continuation of past LawMeets achievements. In the prior three years since UW joined the Transactional LawMeets competitions, UW Law students placed first, third, and first respectively. 

 

Submitted by Law School News on March 31, 2021

This article appears in the categories: Features

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