Liberty School of Law students take top honors at international negotiation competition

On March 19-21, two Liberty University School of Law students, Luca Di Nunzio and Victoria Belk, won the virtual international Transatlantic Negotiation Competition.

“There are very few international negotiation competitions out there, so to win this was a big deal,” said Joel Hesch, who coached the team along with alumni Mia Yugo and Brad Heath. “I couldn’t be more proud of our students. They really demonstrated poise, skill, creativity, hard work, and diligence.”

The event was sponsored by the Syracuse University College of Law and Queens University, Belfast, and featured 12 teams from the U.S. and 12 teams from Europe and Asia. Due to Liberty’s national reputation in negotiation, the university was invited to bring two teams to the competition.

“We surprised the world when they found out that Liberty is winning a lot of these negotiation battles,” Hesch said. “We’ve actually developed a very robust reputation in the legal community in the short time that we have been a law school.”

Hesch said the judges praised the students for their impressive performance.

“The judges even commented that our students appeared to be lawyers already and they wished that they would be able to negotiate against them in the real world because they were so professional,” he said.

The second team of Abigail Wasil and Mathew Hughes exited the weekend with the Best Teamwork award. Hughes was also recognized with the Best Advocates award for the American teams. The talented pair advanced all the way to quarterfinals, where they were eliminated by Jagiellonian University (Kraków, Poland), finishing as a top eight overall competition team.

The competition is designed to give law students a platform to hone their negotiation skills, especially in cross-cultural negotiation, resolving disputes, and facilitating client agreements. In each round of the competition, one team from the United States and one team from Europe/Asia faced off against each other to solve a series of problems presented in a factual scenario that is commonly encountered in international business, trade, and political disputes. The scenarios were not based on the law of a certain country. All participants, even teammates, competed virtually from separate rooms.

“I think a lot of the success can be attributed to trust because, in this format, it was virtual and teammates were in separate rooms,” Hughes said. “I think the trust aspect was huge.”

Each simulation consisted of a common set of facts known by all participants as well as confidential information known only to the participants representing a particular side. Three judges presided over each round, with at least one judge from either Europe or the U.S. The teams’ school affiliations were not revealed until after the competition.

After winning five rounds, the team of Di Nunzio and Belk won first place by defeating Symbiosis Law School from Hyderabad, India in the finals. Both Liberty’s champion duo and the runner up team were awarded cash prizes. All finalists and semifinalist teams received trophies.

“This was a big part of building our brand awareness for our school in a way that helps us in the future,” Hughes said. “And it also shows that a young law school is doing better in these competitions than some of these renowned law schools who are hosting these kinds of competitions.”

All members of Liberty’s negotiation team attributed much of their success to Hesch and his desire to see his students succeed.

“Professor Hesch is fantastic in what he’s done,” Wasil said. “Without him we could not have gone this far.”

Participating schools

Europe and Asia:

Bucerius Law School (Hamburg, Germany)

Catholic University of Leuven (Leuven, Belgium)

Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest, Hungary)

Istanbul Bilgi University (Istanbul, Turkey)

Jagiellonian University (Kraków, Poland)

National University of Juridical Sciences (Kolkata, India)

Newcastle University Law School (Newcastle upon Tyne, England)

Queen’s University Belfast (Belfast, Northern Ireland)

Queen Mary, University of London (London, England)

Symbiosis Law School (Hyderabad, India)

University of Florence (Florence, Italy)

University of Vienna (Vienna, Austria)

United States:

Baylor Law School (Waco, Texas)

Chapman University, Fowler School of Law (Orange, Calif.)

Florida International Law School (Miami, Fla.)

Fordham University School of Law (New York City, New York)

Georgetown University, Law Center (Washington, D.C.)

Liberty University School of Law (Lynchburg, Va.)

Pace Law School (White Plains, New York)

State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo School of Law (Buffalo, New York) Suffolk Law School (Boston, Mass.)

Syracuse University College of Law (Syracuse, New York)

University of Houston Law Center (Houston, Texas)