SMU Law Students Advance to Finals of LawMeets 2020 M&A Boot Camp

Finalists Chosen for LawMeets® 2020 M&A Boot Camp

Philadelphia. August 3, 2020. Ten teams -- 20 students from 8 different law schools -- advanced to the final rounds of this year’s Boot Camp. The Boot Camp consists of eight-weeks of exercises simulating the leveraged buyout of a US software company by a Beijing-based private equity firm. 124 teams, consisting of 248 students from 48 law schools across North America, started the program; 116 teams succeeded in completing all four exercises. From these, the ten top-performing teams where invited to participate in the finals, including SMU Dedman School of Law team members Floy Gaidarski and Jeanne Casagrande. The six SMU teams were sponsored by The Robert B. Rowling Center for Business Law & Leadership at SMU Dedman School of Law.

The Boot Camp is sponsored by the M&A Committee of the Business Law Section of the ABA and by Wilson Chu, Esq. (McDermott), the M&A Committee Chair, SMU Dedman School of Law alumnus and Rowling Center Advisory Board member, and Glenn West, Esq. (Weil), chair of the Academic Subcommittee. The partners at Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP, Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP, Morrison & Forestor LLP, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, Thompson Knight LLP and Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP are all also sponsoring the Boot Camp, and together with scores of other Committee volunteers, served as coaches for the student teams.

During the Boot Camp, teams were asked to take the role of counsel to one side of the transaction, drafting, marking up and negotiating the acquisition agreement. Each team worked with a coach, in most cases a volunteer drawn from the ranks of the M&A Committee and our sponsoring firms. Each coach devoted hours each week, as teams held conference calls with their client, revised agreements and planned for a bi-weekly negotiation session. The culmination of each exercise, the negotiation sessions were observed by expert practitioners who provided each team with intensive feedback. In addition, five webinars were offered to the teams on topics ranging from rep and warranty insurance, to purchase price adjustments, to drafting fraud carve-outs and materiality scrapes. In all, over 150 senior lawyers participated in educating the next generation of deal lawyers.

In the finals, the ten invited teams will complete one final exercise focused on the negotiation of a specific indemnity for a potential patent infringement claim discovered by the parties during due diligence. After three rounds of negotiations, two teams (one from each side of the transaction) will be named as the champions. All teams, however, will have the opportunity to observe these final rounds. The finals will end with a demonstration by four senior practitioners of how they would negotiate the deal. These finals rounds are being held on Friday, August 7th.

2020 M&A Boot Camp
List of Law Schools Attended by Team Participants

Albany Law School, Union University
Baylor Law School, Baylor University
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University
Cornell Law School
Dedman School of Law, Southern Methodist University
Drexel University School of Law
Duke University School of Law
Emory University School of Law
Florida State University
Fordham University School of Law
Georgetown University Law Center
Harvard Law School
Hofstra University School of Law
J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University
John Marshall Law School
Marquette University Law School
Michael E. Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University
Northwestern University School of Law
Osgoode Hall
Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University
Queen's University (Ontario)
Rutgers Law School (Camden campus; formerly Rutgers School of Law–Camden), Rutgers University
Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University
Shepard Broad Law Center, Nova Southeastern University
Stetson University College of Law
Sturm College of Law, University of Denver
Suffolk University Law School
Texas A&M University School of Law
Texas Tech University School of Law
Tulane University School of Law
University of California, Hastings College of the Law
University of California, Los Angeles School of Law
University of Florida Levin College of Law
University of Kansas School of Law
University of Michigan Law School
University of Missouri – Kansas City School of Law
University of Nebraska–Lincoln College of Law
University of North Carolina School of Law
University of Oregon
University of Pennsylvania Law School
University of San Diego School of Law
University of Tennessee College of Law
University of Texas School of Law
University of Toronto
University of Virginia School of Law
University of Washington School of Law
University of Wisconsin Law School
William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas