Year in Review--3rd Place at the ABA National Negotiation Comp Finals

Posted By Elaine Owen, Apr 12, 2017

The UC Davis School of Law team of Danielle Lauber '18 and Anton Swain-Gil ’18 placed third in the 2017 ABA National Law Student Negotiation Competition in Chicago.

Danielle and Anton qualified for the national competition after winning second place at the ABA Regional Competition in Idaho late last year, beating Berkeley Law in the final round. Of the more than 200 teams that participated in the regionals, only 20 were invited to participate in the national competition. This is the second time in two years that King Hall students have won seats at the National Finals.

At the national competition, Lauber and Swain-Gil went up against Columbia University School of Law in the semi-finals and were one of just four teams to advance to the championship round. They won their final round against University of North Carolina School of Law and finished third overall.

The 2017 ABA National Competition focused on business law, simulating legal negotiations in which law students, acting as lawyers, negotiate a series of legal problems. In each round, a panel of judges evaluated the teams based on a variety of factors such as strength of partnership, comprehensive knowledge of facts, professionalism, and negotiation strategy.

The King Hall Negotiations Team (KHNT) would like to give special thanks to Trevor Fehr '17, fifth place winner of the 2016 ABA Competition, who served as the student coach and traveled with the team. KHNT also thanks Faculty Advisor Professor Donna Shestowsky, as well as alumni Saba Shatara ’13 and Ryan Norman ’12, for coaching the teams in preparation for the competition. Further thanks to the KHNT team and board members, and other student volunteers, for sparring with the competitors and helping them get ready for the competition. Finally, KHNT wishes to thank the Dean's Office for its financial support and Accounting Assistant Shelley Lopez-Emerson for her guidance in booking the travel.