Denver Law Hosts Online Transactional LawMeet Competition
University of Denver Sturm College of Law’s champions (top, l-r) Kaley Rickert, Kelsey Kubiak, (bottom, l-r) Sean Magraw, and coach Alex Wilde (JD’18).
University of Denver Sturm College of Law Hosts Online Transactional LawMeet® Competition
On April 3, 2020, 12 teams from across the U.S. competed in the 2020 Transactional LawMeet® held online and hosted by the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.
In this year’s competition, student teams negotiated an acquisition of a business by a private equity firm. The drafting stage took place over two months, with students drafting letters of intent, interviewing their clients, and marking up opposing teams’ drafts. The competition culminated with online negotiations on April 3, 2020, which were originally slated to be in person.
Practicing attorneys from law firms and in-house corporate counsels from the greater Denver area served as judges for the online competition.
Stacey Bowers, associate professor of the practice of law at the Sturm College of Law, organized the competition from the outset and decided to make the change from an in-person competition to a virtual one because of the stay at home orders due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“We are so fortunate at the Sturm College of Law to have the expertise of our Educational Technology team, who helped me plan the transition of the in-person event to an online format,” Bowers said. “With their help and that of the faculty, staff, and student volunteers, we were able to host two sets of six simultaneous online negotiation rounds seamlessly.”
The following teams were the overall winner from each side of the transaction:
- Representing Squirrel Hill Capital Partners: University of Arkansas School of Law (Isabel Thoma, Erin James, and Julian Sharp)
- Representing Fourth Wheel, Inc.: University of Denver Sturm College of Law (Kelsey Kubiak, Sean Magraw, and Kaley Rickert)
“Competing virtually was a unique experience and was much less stressful than expected,” said Kaley Rickert, 2L University of Denver Sturm College of Law. “After a few weeks of online classes, all of the competitors had video communicating down.”
Teams not only had to compete online, preparations for the competition were forced to change to online formats with physical distancing requirements from the global pandemic in place.
“Throughout the transition of moving our preparations from in person to virtual, we learned to be flexible with timing and technology. Moving to a virtual format forced us to prepare documents and exchange red-lines in a similar fashion to practicing attorneys,” Rickert said. “It was as if we were representing real clients; having real-life conversations over Zoom with the Buyer’s legal team, discussing how COVID-19 was affecting our client’s business, and still trying to get a deal done at the end of the day.”
The following teams won the best drafting award on each side of the transaction:
- Representing Squirrel Hill Capital Partners: University of Georgia School of Law (Andrew Klemm, Savannah Phinney, and Ethan Rode)
- Representing Fourth Wheel, Inc.: Baylor Law School (AJ Horner, Ryan Ward, and Zach Liberatore)
The following teams were the overall runner up from each side of the transaction:
- Representing Squirrel Hill Capital Partners: University of Georgia School of Law (Andrew Klemm, Savannah Phinney, and Ethan Rode)
- Representing Fourth Wheel, Inc.: University of Arizona (Castille Cox, Brooke Harris, and Jared Keating)
“Congratulations to all the student competitors who participated in this event and the local Denver attorneys who judged the competition,” Bowers said. “Everyone did a wonderful job with the online format and extra kudos to all of you for staying on board and making the best of this event during difficult times.”
The 12 participating teams in the 2020 Transactional LawMeet® included:
Baylor Law School
BYU J. Reuben Clark Law School
SMU Dedman School of Law
UMKC School of Law
University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law
University of Arkansas School of Law
University of Colorado Law School
University of Denver Sturm College of Law
University of Georgia School of Law
University of San Diego School of Law
University of Tennessee College of Law
William S. Boyd School of Law at UNLV
