By American Bar Association
The M&A Committee of the American Bar Association Business Law Section have announced winners of the Best Mark-Up awards and the Elite 8 quarterfinalists in the MAC Cup II law student M&A negotiating tournament.
The winners are:
Best Mark-Up Awards
Ayham Dahlan and Jesus Martin, California Western School of Law
Taylor Roswall and Zoe Storck-Smith, Tennessee College of Law
Nora Long and Ada Wu, UC Davis School of Law
Trevor Atamian and Jackson Leake, UCLA School of Law
Katherine Hung and Allison Li, Yale Law School
Quarterfinal teams
Lauren Chasnow and Alan Gitelman, Cardozo Law School
Jimmy Scoville and Kiran Singh, Duke Law School
Tyler Viljaste and Emma Zazueta Lachenaud, Georgetown Law School
Charlie Morris and Chris Timmer, Lewis & Clark Law School
Liz Eastlund and Austin Siener, Missouri Law School
Jillian Kerr and Terrance Parham, Penn State Law School
Avital Sternin and Kristina Wolff, University of Toronto Faculty of Law
Katherine Hung and Allison Li, Yale Law School
The MAC Cup is a mock M&A negotiation tournament with students from law schools across the U.S. and Canada competing in teams of two.
Students are given a fact pattern and assigned to be buyer or seller counsel. They then prepare and negotiate with their counterpart counsel team the issues they deem most significant and a mark-up of a draft acquisition agreement.
Participants in the competition are provided with professional-level resources and many teams have coaches from the M&A Committee or other practicing M&A attorneys or law school professors.
“The M&A Committee started the MAC Cup to give law school students opportunities to learn about and apply M&A negotiation skills,” said Rita O’Neill of Sullivan & Cromwell and chair of the M&A Committee. “The students get to advocate on behalf of a buyer or a seller while seeking a mutually agreeable deal.”
This year’s tournament began with 64 teams from 46 schools across the U.S. and Canada. Thirty-two teams advanced from Round 1 negotiations held Oct. 26-27; the eight teams qualifying for the quarterfinal rounds emerged from Round 2 negotiations held Nov. 2-3. The Best Mark-Ups were chosen by M&A practitioners from draft acquisition agreement mark-ups submitted by each of the 64 teams as part of the Round 1 negotiations. The quarterfinals will be held in January, with the semi-finals and finals later in January at a meeting of the M&A Committee.
“The competition was fierce,” said Mike O’Bryan of Morrison Foerster and immediate past chair of the M&A Committee. “The students worked hard to prepare their positions and negotiated forcefully on behalf of their clients.”
In the tournament rounds the students negotiate the issues list and agreement provisions before a pair of practicing M&A attorneys as judges. Through hands-on experience and access to professional level resources, students learn practical skills for when they start working.
“We try to make the experience as realistic as possible,” said Thaddeus Chase of McDermott Will. “As students move through the rounds, they even have to change sides, much as they might on different projects in practice.”
In addition to the MAC Cup trophy for the winning team, the winning and runner-up teams receive scholarship awards.
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