Jesse Yang '11, Jeremiah Harvey '10 Compete in National Negotiation Competition

Jesse Yang '11 and Jeremiah Harvey '10 competed in the National level of the American Bar Association's Law Student Negotiation Competition in Orlando, Florida on February 5-6, 2010.  Yang and Harvey advanced to the semi-final round but lost by two points to Boston University, the team that eventually placed first.

Yang and Patrick Anding '10 had placed first in the American Bar Association's Law Student Regional Negotiation Competition in November 2009.  Anding was originally scheduled to compete in the National Competition with Yang but  was unable to due to the birth of his second child, whose arrival was expected on the same weekend as the competition.  Two weeks before the competition was scheduled, Yang selected Harvey as the alternate competitor and the two extensively prepared during the time leading up to the competition.  

"I felt honored when the Jesse and Patrick asked me to compete in Patrick's place.  I was unsure whether I could ever fill Patrick's shoes and compete on a national level without having experience, but we gave it a shot," said Harvey. 

"It was a bit difficult at first," said Yang.  "Jeremiah and I had to learn to work with each other within the span of two weeks and were competing against teams that had successfully worked with each other for months.  With that said, I was incredibly happy to see how effective Jeremiah and I worked with each other at the competition."

"It was a great experience altogether.  This is a unique opportunity to experiment with proven negotiation strategies and receive honest feedback from experienced judges and attorneys from across the country," said Yang.

For their success in getting to the semi-finals, the team expresses deep gratitude to Professor Donna Shestowsky who spent hours coaching the team, as well as to those who helped to moot the team to prepare for the competition.  Special thanks to Sarah McBride '09, Patrick Anding '10, Yuri Kvichko '10, Alan Ho '10, Hazel-Lynne Espejo '10, Eve Epstein '10, Rebekah Barlow '10, John Briscoe '10, Michael Buchfurer '11, Mark Ellinghouse '11, Michael Fletcher '10, Valerie Fenchel '11, Cheryl Wei '11, Rachel Ray '11, Michael Marriot '11, Jesse Suarez '12, and Alexandria Goff '12.