Fordham Law School’s Dispute Resolution Society launched its fall 2018 campaign in spectacular fashion with a regional championship at one competition and two award recipients at another.
The 2L team of Maria Lathouris and Sydney Rosenblum were named co-champions out of 24 team contestants at the annual American Bar Association Negotiation Competition regional held at NYU Law School on Nov. 2-3. Lathouris and Rosenblum will compete at the national competition in Chicago in February.
Fordham Law also excelled at the American Arbitration Association’s Arbitration Competition held Nov. 2-3 at the headquarters of the New York International Arbitration Center. 2Ls Andrew Calamari, Sophia Dauria, and Madison Gaudreau won the team award for best witness preparation. Calamari also took home best advocate for his performance as a witness.
“Winning competitions enhances the Law School’s reputation in the field of dispute resolution,” said Professor Jacqueline Nolan-Haley, director of Fordham’s ADR & Conflict Resolution program. “Fordham Law is synonymous with producing champions in these competitions.”
Nolan-Haley, who attended a session of each competition, praised the students for their remarkable professionalism and incredible hours of practice time they dedicated to their craft. She also credited the success to the efforts of their coaches and the students who worked behind the scenes to moot the competitors.
“This is a shared victory for the whole Dispute Resolution Society,” Nolan-Haley said.
Lathouris and Rosenblum each expressed gratitude to their teammates for the amount of moot preparation they received in the three weeks leading up to the competition and to 3L Coach Brian Fried and DRS Managing Editor Marisa Rametta for feedback they shared. They also credited Fordham’s other regional competitors—Adam Weber, Allie Shapiro, Alicia Serrani, and Brandon Rutter—for helping with additional overnight prep once they learned after the competition’s opening round that they would be competing the following day in finals.
Lathouris and Rosenblum did not know one another before DRS coaches assigned them to compete as a team, but they quickly developed a strong partnership. The duo each cited the “Fordham method” of having two competitors play predetermined roles as integral to their success. Rosenblum made offers in the employment law negotiation, while Lathouris focused on “soft” issues and asking questions.
“To the judges, it looked like we were passing an invisible baton to each other,” Lathouris said. “Having predefined roles helped us show the judges how prepared we were and ensured we knew when the other person would speak.”
“It was an honor to represent Fordham in such a positive light,” Rosenblum added.
Heading into the week of the AAA competition, Calamari expected to support his teammates in a backup role. An unexpected change put him in the witness seat, however, and resulted in him winning the best advocate award.
Calamari praised his teammate Taylor Solomon, who was initially supposed to play the witness role, for laying out all the commercial dispute case information in a way that made his job easy. The team’s best witness preparation award went hand in hand with his individual award, he said. Thus, he celebrated the efforts of Sophia Dauria and Madison Gaudreau, who played lawyers during the competition, and backups Solomon and Monique Lara. He also thanked Head Coach Dave Gallo and 3L Coach Alexandra Lane.
“It would have been impossible to do all this research myself,” Calamari said. “Having the larger team give me the right answers, help me practice my delivery, and fine-tune my arguments was a major reason for my success.”
Fordham DRS team that competed at the ABA Negotiation Competition
