Students bring home honors

STUDENTS BRING HOME HONORS IN COMPETITIONS

The Indiana Law Entrepreneurship Clinic team brought home the Entrepreneur’s

Choice award at the Venture Capital Investment Competition South Regional at Rice

University in Houston on February 7. The team comprised 3Ls Steven Marino,

Stephanie Atallah, David Saylor, and Douglas Sutton, along with Ashley Emerole,

a second-year student at the Kelley School of Business. In the competition, the IU team

sat as venture capitalists, hearing funding pitches from three real entrepreneurs, con

ducting due diligence, and then valuing the businesses, choosing a pitch, and drafting

a term sheet for and negotiating with their chosen entrepreneur. The team chose to

work with SOTAog, an oil-and-gas analytics business based in Houston.

Carolyn Griffith, ’20, was one of two winners at Baylor Law School’s fourth annual

The Closer competition. The Closer is a highly selective competition with invitations

extended to law schools whose programming demonstrates a commitment to excel

lence in practical transactional law training. The deal that the participants negotiate

is disclosed to the competitors less than 24 hours before the first round of negotiations.

The tight timeline forces competitors to identify the most important legal issues and

devise and negotiate solutions that best serve their client’s needs with the efficiency

required of lawyers under realistic time constraints. “These are two highly competitive

and prestigious competitions, the kinds of real-world opportunities that we are happy

to offer to students,” said Mark E. Need, ’94, clinical professor of law and director of the

school’s MBA program. “Our students worked hard to pull apart and analyze the under

lying transactions.”

3Ls Betsy Astrup, Amanda Vaughn, and Alyssa Gerstner were runners-up in the

Global Antitrust Institute Moot Competition at the E. Barrett Prettyman court house

in Washington, DC, on February 22. This is the second year in a row the school fielded a

team for the competition. “The team was amazing and put in untold hours over the past

2½ months,” said Prof. Shana Wallace, coach. “They earned this well-deserved honor.” The Law School’s Public Interest Law Foundation raised over $18,000 in its annual

work. Assistant Dean Anne McFadden “won” this year’s competition.

The Black Law Students Association sponsored the social event of the Law School’s

season, the Rapheal A. Prevot, Jr. Barristers Ball, on February 15. Lakeisha Barnes

and Trevor Worby were crowned Ms. and Mr. Maurer.

The Latinx Law Student Association won the 2020 Indiana University Latino Facul

ty and Staff Council Organization Award, recognized as the organization of the year for

its contribution to the Latino community.

Alex Pantos was named editor-in-chief of the Indiana Journal of Global Legal

Studies. Hughie Keller, Clara Gutwein, Morgan York, Mahrukh Badar, Mahrukh Ali,

and Alex Pantos have had their articles accepted for presumed publication in the

Journal’s next volume.

Alexa Wilson was elected chief justice of the Sherman Minton Executive Advisory

Board; Cole Byram was selected as the 2020–2021 Student Bar Association President;

Dakota Coates was elected IU Graduate and Professional Student Government presi

dent and John Pope was elected as its treasurer.

Amanda Magaldi won a scholarship from the AccessLex Institute; Cheyna Hass

Galloway was awarded the prestigious John H. Edwards Fellowship, one of the universi

ty’s most prestigious academic awards; and Kevin Jones was recognized by IU’s Black

Graduate Student Association as a Leading the Way Award recipient.

Although the competition has been delayed, the school has assembled a team for

the Willem Vis Moot Court consisting of JiMin Kim, Brandy Cheng, Jad Labban, Siuy

Li, Mary Strong, Andrew Ireland, Fuxing Sai, and Derrick Hou. Adjunct Prof. Angie

Raymond advises the team.

The Patent Drafting Competition team of Payton Hoff, Sarah Kelly, Ziyu Ma, and

Melanie Magdun presented virtually before a panel of judges as part of the US Patent

and Trademark Office’s regional competition.

Michael Glennon and Wei-Chi Hsu represented the school virtually at

the American Intellectual Property Law Association Giles Sutherland Rich Moot

Court Competition.

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For a complete listing of all awards presented to the Class of 2020, visit

law.indiana.edu/commencement.