Griffith’s Law Students Compete in the Law Society’s Negotiation Competition
The Law Faculty at Griffith College offers a wide range of extracurricular activities to enhance students’ skills throughout their studies. Each year, Griffith College competes in the Law Society of Ireland’s Negotiation Competition. This year, Griffith College was represented by Fiona O’Malley who is studying the LL.M. in International Human Rights Law and Thomas Demoulin who is studying the LL.B. (Hons) in Law. Fiona and Thomas share their experience of the Negotiation Competition and how they believe their participation will benefit them in the future.
Preparation for the Negotiation Competition
The Negotiation Competition was a wonderful event, one that I would highly recommend to law students, debating students and anyone else who has an interest in the process of negotiation.
To prepare, we held an initial internal competition in Griffith College where we received very valuable feedback from members of the law faculty. Siobhán Clabby BL and Shauna Colgan BL both helped us prepare by pointing out our strengths, weaknesses and areas to improve. Once we got used to the general structure of negotiating and started putting their feedback into practice, we both felt like we were progressing well with negotiation.
Structure of the Negotiation Competition
The National competition was a step up from our internal practice. There was a high standard of negotiation, and we were certainly competing against very able opponents, both in the Honorable Society of King’s Inns and Letterkenny Institute of Technology (LYIT). There were eight teams split into two rounds of four and the overall highest performing team from each group went through to the final. Whilst we were disappointed not to get through to the final, we were happy that we got an opportunity to participate in the competition and further develop our skills.
Griffith College’s Participation in the Competition
Our first round in the competition was against representatives from the King’s Inn - a challenge we were both eager to face. We approached the first round head-on, keeping up with the eloquent negotiation brought forward by the representatives of the Kings Inn. Although no results were given to us, we both believed that we put up a good fight, and in some instances taking the upper edge over our opponents from Kings Inn. We were able to improve upon our negotiation tactics in the second round of the competition against LYIT. Improvements which proved effective as we were able to come out with all our terms agreed, without ceding any of our positions. Overall, both rounds brought up new learning points which has definitely made us more fervent negotiators.
Benefits of Competing in the Negotiation Competition
The competition served as a stepping-stone to garner further confidence in both of our public speaking abilities. Stepping into a new environment, facing the challenges brought on by Negotiations, as well as applying them to two varying teams allowed us to learn how to adapt in ongoing situations. We specifically learned the building blocks for successful negotiation and how to adapt depending on the scenario.
The Law Advocacy Society at Griffith College welcomes new members all year round. If you wish to participate in our extracurricular activities, you can email advocacy.griffith.ie.