The Transactional Law Competition is an innovative draft-exchange and live-negotiation competition open to Wayne State University Law School students. The event was co-founded by firm attorney and Wayne Law graduate Justin Hanna in 2014 under the tutelage and supervision of Professor Eric Zacks, who continues to oversee the program. Third-year students Lindsey LaForest, Madison Light, Colin Nash and Kate Smigelski were the chairpersons of this year’s competition.

Wayne Law students took part in the drafting, negotiation and advocacy processes, with two-member teams representing a buyer or seller involved in a complex acquisition. Students worked on drafting and revising exchanged drafts for several weeks, and the live competition brought the teams together for two rounds of negotiations in front of panels of two or three judges. The panels, comprised of 13 M&A attorneys, offered insight and feedback after each round.

The competition serves as a platform for students to develop transactional skills in a practical environment and to receive real-time feedback from practicing M&A professionals, whose insight is routinely cited by the participants as one of the most valuable aspects of the program.

The following law students were declared winners in the 2021 Transactional Law Competition:

• Negotiations (seller’s counsel) and Drafting (seller’s counsel)
  • Muhammad Siwani and Andrew Vailliencourt

• Negotiations (buyer’s counsel)
  • Lily Indenbaum and Danielle Kus

• Drafting (buyer’s counsel)
  • Kevin Chrustowski and Christopher Sims 

In 2018, the local competition became the framework for a larger, regional invitational which, in April 2021, welcomed students from 15 law schools across the country.