Law Students: Let’s Make A Deal!

I was really pleased to come across this article in the ABA Journal about Drexel University Professor Karl Okamoto, who has created a moot court-type experience dedicated to helping students hone skills needed to practice transactional law. I know the focus of this blog is generally on litigation and trial skills, but I applaud Professor Okamoto for coming up with something new and inspiring to fill the huge void for students who don’t want to litigate, or maybe just want to get a taste for what deal lawyers do. I hope similar programs become more widely available.

I probably speak for a lot of litigators who feel that they did not so much choose to go the litigation route as settle for what was available. Certainly, when I dreamt of becoming a lawyer I pictured myself in a courtroom. And I spend a fair amount of time there. But I spend an equal or greater amount of time either chained to a computer drafting motions and discovery responses or taking depositions. If I had learned something about doing deals early on, who knows . . .

Almost every transaction lawyer I know enjoys his or her practice more than the average litigator I know. The only exception to this comes from the fact that transactional law, M & A, real estate deals, private placement, public offerings and the like, seems to be a cyclical practice. At least in the past two decades, it’s been feast or famine for a lot of the deal lawyers I know, particularly at BigLaw firms. That’s not to say that litigation isn’t cyclical. In fact, I’m told we’re in a down cycle in many litigation practice areas right now.

The number of students who spend their second year summer in a BigLaw summer associate program has been shrinking. I know that neither BigLaw nor these programs are everybody’s cup of tea. On the other hand, up until now such programs have been the only opportunity most law students (and many lawyers) ever get to experience how transactional law is practiced.

Here’s how Professor Okamoto’s moot transaction program, LawMeets, works:

“[S]tudents get fact patters for a deal and play the roles of buyer, seller and client. Over a period of months, they have conferences; draft, exchange and mark up documents; and then negotiate the deal. Prominent transactional lawyers judge their documents and negotiations, as well as offer feedback. Then the students get to watch the pros haggle over the same terms. ‘That’s when we think the “ahas” begin,’ Okamoto says.”

One added benefit I can immediately see to this program is how it forces students to complete a project over several months, which is much more similar to an actual law practice, where it is necessary to sustain focus on a deal (or a case, or several cases) over a longer period of time, often punctuated by short periods of frenzied activity.

The other interesting approach is asking the judges to demonstrate how they would handle the same situation. This could influence the way trial advocacy and moot court competitions are taught, though it might make it more difficult to find judges who’ll volunteer, not only to judge the competition, but also demonstrate their skills.

Kudos to Professor Okamoto!

Learn More
Follow

Follow this blog

Get every new post delivered right to your inbox.

Email address