Chapman Law Students Travel to Ukraine for International Mediation Competition
December 4, 2013
Last weekend, two teams from Chapman’s Fowler School of Law competed and succeeded in an international mediation competition in Kiev, Ukraine. The school sent the team of Clay O’Neal (J.D. ’14), Andrew Mase (J.D. ’14), and Tami Carson (J.D. ’14) , and Paul Deese (J.D. ‘14), Stepehen Tanizaki (J.D. ’14), and Catherine Conroy (J.D. ’14).
The team of O’Neal, Mase, and Carson finished in first place in mediation and second place in advocacy after the preliminaries. O’Neal, Mase, Carson, and Deese all took away individual awards as well.
“What made me most proud was the way our teams represented us as ambassadors and teachers,” said Professor Nancy Schultz. The teams competed with teams from Lithuania, Ukraine, and Russia, and actually elected not to compete in the final round so as to give the local teams the best chance for success.
Schultz chairs the big international mediation competition for the organization that invited the Fowler School of Law teams, and Schultz participated in running the competition and training the competitors.
“We were working with students who had virtually no training in mediation or negotiation, and our teams, along with David Dowling, stepped up and helped me with the training,” Schultz said.
Students enjoyed the opportunity to travel abroad. “It was a wonderful experience working with Russian, Lithuanian and Ukrainian students. Not only were they extremely friendly and welcoming, but they picked up on the mediation process quickly and almost effortlessly. It was such an honor to partake in this trip, and it was extremely rewarding to work with students from different cultures,” said Fowler law student Catherine Conroy.