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Five students from IU McKinney took part in the Transactional Law Meet in late February 2015: Daniel Jones, Tim Dunn, Young Cho, Spencer Rajabzadeh, and Colten Mitchell (in the photo from left). All had taken a negotiations class with Professor Cynthia Adams, '83, in Fall 2014.

After working with the students to prepare for the competition, Professor Adams divided the team based on their negotiating styles. Rajabzadeh and Dunn traveled to Kansas City to compete at the University of Missouri, while Cho, Jones, and Mitchell competed in Chicago at Northwestern University. Bill Neale, ’73, and other attorneys at law firm Krieg DeVault provided coaching to the teams as well, Professor Adams said.

“Each team performed extremely well, but neither won their meet,” Professor Adams said. This year's competition centered on the sale of a New Jersey family-owned business to a Brazilian private equity buyer. The negotiation primarily focused on an earn-out and an indemnification. As part of the competition, students were involved in client interviews, drafting provisions, marking up another team's draft, and negotiating the deal, she said.