Inter-School Negotiation Practicum

Spring 2021 FAQs for Students

Who is eligible to participate?

Any student with 30+ credit hours

When will this exercise take place?

Students will have from March 1st through March 31st to complete the negotiation.

Who will I be negotiating with?

We will pair you with a student from another law school. On March 1st, you will receive your opposing counsel’s contact information along with the relevant pleadings and information from your client.

What type of fact pattern will I be negotiating?

All participants will do a pre-trial negotiation based on an actual court case. You will be provided the relevant case pleadings and a short fictitious confidential memo.

How will the negotiation be conducted? 

There are no requirements except that you must use email, phone, and video conferencing at lease once.  You have the entire month to negotiate and may communicate as many times with your partner as you wish. On average this past semester, students communicated with their partner 7.7 times.

Do I have to draft up the agreement at the end of the exercise?

No. You must simply reach an agreement with your partner by March 31st and then fill out a post-negotiation questionnaire that we will send you.

Must I be enrolled in an ADR class to participate?

No, you do not need to be enrolled in a class. Any student may elect to participate and there is also no pre-requisite that you have any previous negotiation training. This is designed to be a fairly straightforward exercise that any student, regardless of training, can participate in.

Does there need to be a faculty contact/advisor at my school in order for me to participate?

Ideally, yes. We strongly encourage all participants to debrief with an ADR/Negotiation professor following the exercise. If there is no one at your school willing and/or able to do so, please let us know and we will try to pair you with one.

What happens if my partner and I do not reach an agreement?

Technically, nothing. However, the goal is for this to closely resemble “real-life.” When lawyers represent clients, there is almost always some form of a deadline. Therefore, we suggest doing your absolute best to reach a deal within the allotted time frame.

Is outside research allowed?

No. Please refrain from doing any outside research. We will be providing you with all of the information you need to make an informed settlement decision on behalf of your client.

Spring 2021 Negotiator Commitments

• Negotiators must use the following three modes of communication at least once: email, phone, and video conferencing (FaceTime, Skype, Zoom, etc.) Otherwise, you may communicate as many times and in whatever mode you wish.
• Initial correspondence must be made by noon (CST) on Monday, March 8^th. Professors will be notified if there is a lack of correspondence.
• Act professionally, communicate in a timely manner, and participate in good faith throughout the exercise.
• Approach this as if you are actually the attorney for the case and not as a student reaching out to another student to do the exercise. You should be in character for all communications you have with your opposing counsel.
• All communications with your partner are to remain confidential.
• The deadline to reach an agreement is March 31st at 5:00pm CST.
• Once you complete the exercise, you agree to submit answers to a brief questionnaire.

All students should watch the following video before commencing negotiations: https://tinyurl.com/STCLNegotiation

*If you are voluntarily participating in this exercise and are not required to do so for a class, please make sure you can abide by these commitments. If not, we respectfully ask for you to withdraw your registration.

Registration is currently closed and will re-open in August.

We are pleased to share some post-negotiation feedback from students that participated during the 2019-2020 academic year.

• Overall, this was a once in a lifetime law school experience.
• This was an amazing exercise and I believe it provided a very good, real-world simulation for negotiation practice. I would recommend it to any other 1 or 2L looking for practice/experience.
• I really loved this exercise and the fact that it was an actual case with real motions. This made the negotiation realistic.
• I liked this exercise because it simulated how negotiations actually happen in the real world.
• This was a very beneficial experience. I felt that it gave us an opportunity to work with someone we did not know and was much more of a “real-world” experience.
• I thought this was a wonderful experience, and any student interested in learning about ADR would benefit from it. I especially liked how independent it was; it really felt good to have so much discretion in figuring out how to deal with another party outside of the classroom.
• This exercise was a great opportunity to practice real life skills with another student. Working with other law students around the country was a great experience and I highly recommend that all students participate.
• This was a good experience and I highly recommend it for future law students.
• This was incredibly rewarding in that it felt like a real life situation. I felt that I could more acceptably “get into the role” with someone I did not know than I can in some simulations with my friends.
• I really enjoyed this exercise. I put me in a real life situation where I had to be formal and gradually as I got to know my partner relaxed a bit. I would definitely recommend this exercise to all law school students. This was fun and a learning process.
• This was an interesting and fun way to learn how to negotiate. I would like to try this again.
• It was helpful to get a sense for how it will be in practice, when we are constantly encountering new, unfamiliar attorneys, and I believe that this exercise was great life-like negotiation practice.
• This experience felt more realistic than the class negotiation I participated in this semester. It felt more realistic because I was actually communicating with an individual I did not know. I imagine this would be more in line with working with an opposing party’s counsel that I am not familiar with. Also, having to schedule times to talk in order to work through the agreement felt more in line with actual dispute resolution practice as an attorney.
• I thought the exercise was a great experience to work with students I would otherwise not be as easily able to practice negotiations with. The subject matter was interesting and I was excited to be discussing statutes associated with my home state of California. I also was interested in the tactics and methods other students have been taught and utilize.
• This felt real because I wasn’t familiar with the person on the other side. It was more work, but the experience was more genuine.
• Thank you so much for organizing and hosting this exercise. I enjoyed the experience a great deal.
• I thought it was a very insightful exercise and I enjoyed it.
• I enjoyed this exercise and would like to see it continue.
• I found this to be more realistic in that I was negotiating with an unknown person and using technology to facilitate. It was easier to take it more seriously and practice professional tone and skills.
• This exercise allowed more flexibility and allowed me to feel like an attorney. This was a real-world practical exercise with the scheduling, October 31st deadline, and different forms of communication involved/required.
• This exercise provided a real-life feel of how negotiations would take place.
• Partnering with someone from a different school required that I treat the situation with more thought and preparedness.
• I thought this was a good exercise, particularly because of how it differed from our typical face-to-face experiences in class. My classmates and I have become so adept at working with each other, especially in close settings, that it was nice (in a challenging way) to have to wait on someone sometimes.
• This felt more real because I didn’t know him and he was from a different location which is what would probably be more likely when I am practicing.
• I enjoyed the realistic side of having to incorporate multiple forms of communication. It made the exercise feel like a real world exercise.
• I believe that this was a fun, entertaining, and educational exercise. I definitely enjoyed this exercise.
• I really enjoyed this exercise and am glad that I participated. Negotiating will be something I will do on a frequent basis in my area of practice. I just wish this would have been made available to our school when I first started
• It honestly felt like we were both actual attorneys doing this for real. Communicate, communicate, communicate. My partner had things going on early in the month and I had things come up at the end of the month but we were able to find time that worked for us because we communicated effectively.
• I felt that this exercise gave me an opportunity to get comfortable gaining confidence in discussing legal matters with someone I am not already familiar with.
• This was a unique experience that provided a better understanding of how negotiations take place. Having a deadline and certain requirements to meet made the process seem more realistic.
• This was a great experience and I feel good knowing how a negotiation with a stranger will look like in the future
• It was valuable to have the opportunity to work with someone from a different school in a different time zone.
• I appreciated the exercise and would highly recommend it for future students studying negotiation.
• It was a good experience to learn how to negotiate properly over the phone.
• It provided a unique opportunity to test skills across different methods of communication with a stranger, which resembles the “real world” of negotiation more closely than a classroom, or a moot court exercise, where your partner is someone you regularly interact with. This exercise felt less restricted in that faltering or making errors felt less consequential – great for someone new trying to practice these skills.
• Great experience working with students from other schools. Thank you for creating this opportunity.
• My partner was extremely professional and dealt in good faith and with strong arguments, which made it an enjoyable and challenging process. Overall, it was a great learning exercise and I hope they keep it going for future students.

Spring 2021 Case

Complaint
Motion to Dismiss
Response to Motion to Dismiss
Dismissal (May 2021)

Fall 2020 Case

Complaint
Motion to Dismiss
Response to Motion to Dismiss

Spring 2020 Case

Complaint
Answer
MSJ
Opposition