On November 5-6, 2022, forty-eight students participated in Cornell Law School’s fourteenth Transactional Lawyering Competition, which was held in person for the first time since fall 2019. Essentially a “moot court” for students who are interested in becoming deal lawyers, the competition is the culmination of the Introduction to Transactional Lawyering class taught by Mark Underberg ‘81, adjunct professor of law. It remains one of the only intramural competitions of its kind in the country.
Divided into twenty-four two-person teams, representing the buyer or seller, participants engaged in mock negotiations over the purchase of a privately owned airport in upstate New York by a private-equity company. They were judged by a distinguished panel of twenty-eight deal lawyers from around the country (listed below), nearly all of whom are Cornell Law School alumni. The panel graded the teams on their mark-up of a twenty-five-page asset purchase agreement and their ability to negotiate effectively on behalf of their respective clients.
Following three rounds of negotiations over the weekend, the winning teams were those with the highest cumulative scores on both their written work product and their negotiation skills. Partners on the winning buyer’s counsel team were Yuchen Liu, LL.M. ’23, and Josh Spagnoli ’24. Jerolynn Liu ’23 and Pablo Storch ’24 were partners on the winning seller’s counsel team.
