The winning teams who took top honours at the 2015 International Negotiation Competition. Full caption at the end of the story.
We are negotiation champions
Canada 1 and Canada 2, two teams from Robson Hall, the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Law, took first and fifth places, respectively, at the 2015 International Negotiation Competition hosted by the Law Society of Ireland in Dublin from July 6-10, 2015.
Canada 1 is comprised of Andrew Slough and Shimon Leibl; Heather Wadsworth and Andrew Torbiak make up Canada 2.
These teams placed first and second in the regional competition held in Saskatoon, SK during the past academic year. As such, both were invited to compete at the American Bar Association (ABA) finals hosted in Houston, TX, last February. Andrew Slough and Shimon Leibl won it all. Indeed, both teams finished in the top 20 out of 191 teams representing 110 law schools across North America.
An unprecedented feat
No other Canadian law school has ever won both the international and U.S. national negotiation championships.
Since Robson Hall holds the top spots in Canada and the U.S., the organizers of the 2015 International Negotiation Competition allowed Canada to enter two teams in the world finals. The only other nation to have two teams in the final competition was the host, Ireland.
Out of 24 teams from 22 countries, Robson Hall finished in first and fifth place in the world.
“We are tremendously proud of the students and the world class negotiation program at the University of Manitoba,” says John Pozios, co-coach of the teams. “These results would not have been possible without the guidance of Michael Weinstein, Steven Meltzer, and Vivian Hilder or the financial support provided by the Marcel A. Desautels Centre for Private Enterprise and the Law.”
About the competition
“The objectives of the INC are to develop practical legal skills such as negotiation skills and professional legal language in the context of international transactions and disputes,” the competition’s Facebook page reads. As every year, team coaches and the judging panel of the competition consist of lawyers, business people and leading professors of law from participating countries.
The countries competing at the International Negotiation Competition 2015 were:
- Australia
- Canada
- England
- France
- Germany
- India
- Indonesia
- Ireland
- Japan
- New Zealand
- Northern Ireland
- Norway
- Poland
- Qatar
- Russia
- Scotland
- Singapore
- Slovakia
- South Korea
- Switzerland
- Ukraine
- USA (winner INC 2014)
In the photo at the top of the post, from left to right: Michael Weinstein (National Representative and Co-Coach), Shimon Leibl (Canada 1), Andrew Slough (Canada 1), Heather Wadsworth (Canada 2), Andrew Torbiak (Canada 2), and John Pozios (Faculty Representative and Co-Coach). Absent (they didn’t travel with us): Vivian Hilder and Steven Meltzer (both assisted in training and preparing the teams during various points at the local, regional, U.S. national, and international levels).