Huma Blunt (Legal Director (Northern Europe), Reckit Benckiser)The City Law School team & Linda Jotham (Deputy Programme Director on LPC)

14th October heralded much excitement at City after five students on the Legal Practice Course won the 2013 Fresh Minds Commercial Negotiation competition, held in the board room at Mishcon de Reya.

Sharon Kimathi, Rekha Makwana, Stephen McNeill, Hammad Naveed and Joshua Schuermann beat teams from the University of Law and BPP to secure first place and an invaluable in-house work placement each.

The competition was judged by a prestigious panel including Paul van Reesch Vice President, Legal at Coca-Cola Enterprises Ltd. He says he was impressed with the City team’s performance:

“Despite fierce competition, it was team work which ultimately made the difference for the winning team. What stood out for me was the way in which all members of The City Law School team contributed to the negotiation and, when the going got tough, how they pulled together to overcome the challenges from the other teams.”

Linda Jotham, Deputy Programme Director of the LPC at The City Law School, was responsible for putting the team together and preparing them for the competition.

The team preparing!

“I am immensely proud of our students’ success against such strong opposition. The City Law School has an excellent track record in legal competitions and I’m delighted that we have added to that. Negotiation is a key skill for commercial lawyers and the students will have learned a great deal from participating and from the mentoring which they received.”

You can read the full story via the City University website.

The competition was established by Fresh Minds Legal in response to a perceived lack of in-house commercial awareness at a junior level.

You can see some footage of the students in action on the Fresh Minds videos of the event or read an article by Josh about the event.