King Hall Students Take Initiative and Compete for the First Time in the UCLA Transactional Law Competition
Posted By Nathan Searcy, Mar 1, 2021
Teams from across the country competed in the UCLA Transactional Law Competition on February 26th. This competition offered law students an opportunity to draft and negotiate a complex business transaction. The King Hall Negotiations Team (KHNT) was represented by Kristi Thielen ’21, Ari Ghavami ’21, Alexandra Mills ’22, and Sam Morris ’21.
In this year’s competition, teams were given general background information on both the transaction and both parties’ prior dealings. They were also provided client-specific confidential information. They were asked to use this information to draft a portion of an acquisition agreement that addressed all the open issues (the “Draft Agreement”). The teams were then given an opportunity to comments on another team’s draft agreement (the “Mark-Up Agreement”). The teams had an opportunity to ask questions of their clients prior to submitting the Mark-Up Agreement.
On February 26th, the teams engaged in two rounds of negotiations. In one round they negotiated as the side that created the Draft Agreement; in the second, they negotiated as the side that submitted the Mark-Up Agreement. Teams were then judged based on their prewritten agreements and their negotiation performance. The agreement drafting and the negotiations simulated a realistic complex business transaction that was both challenging and exciting.
“This was a fantastic learning opportunity and I gained so much insight into a Mergers & Acquisition transaction from both my teammates and our coach practitioners,” said Alex Mills. “It was both a challenging and an exciting experience to lead a simulated biotech Mergers & Acquisitions deal from the term sheet stage to the close,” said Ari Ghavami. “These past few months, we spent countless hours drafting and revising the Stock Purchase Agreement, engaging in client calls, marking up another team’s draft, and preparing for the negotiations. We are grateful to have gained such valuable exposure to the deal-making process.”
This competition was hosted online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The KHNT students adapted well to this change and were able to represent King Hall with poise, professionalism, and noteworthy expertise.
KHNT would like to thank KHNT Alumni, Chris Gorman ’14 and Chris Ronne ’15 who volunteered their time to act as practitioner coaches for the KHNT students who competed. Additionally, KHNT would like to thank Professor Joo for also assisting the teams in this competition and KHNT President, Lauren Ball ’21 and KHNT External Competition Chair, Thea Percival ’21 for their work in organizing this competition.
