Second Place at the Box Office!

It’s all about getting what you want, and that’s just what the John Marshall Law School's Negotiation Team did this weekend in Champaign, Illinois. After weeks of hard work and preparation the team traveled to the University of Illinois School of Law to compete against twenty teams in the ABA Law Student Division Regional Negotiation Competition. One team consisted of Jennifer Anderson and Courtney Slovin, the other consisted of Alex Dimitt and Patricia Ross (that’s me!) After a grueling Saturday, the teams negotiated settlement agreements for our client, Elias Smith. Afterwards, we anxiously awaited the announcement of the teams who would advance to the final round.

Alex and I were one of only four teams announced Saturday evening to advance to the final round on Sunday morning. Immediately after the announcement we received the confidential facts for the final negotiation. That's when everyone pitched in and helped Alex and I research and anticipate potential issues that could come up for the other side over a wide variety of pizza. (A quick shout out is in order to Jill Ruggiero for the best pizza order I’ve ever seen.) We all read and memorized the facts, researched the law and thought of creative, unusual solutions to potential problems.

After a long night and a tense negotiation early the following morning with two talented competitors from University of Missouri at Kansas City, Alex and I placed second in the entire competition. As the second place team, we have a shot of receiving an invitation to compete in the National Competition in Florida in February. Stay tuned!

The two teams would like to extend their gratitude to our amazing coaches, Professor MacLachlan, Bill Kalbac, and Ian Bucciarelli. They were all so dedicated to our success and we couldn’t have done it without them. We would also like to thank our alternates Chris McElgunn, Jillian Ruggerio, Meta Brown, and Louis Raymond. They did such an awesome job coming up with off-side facts and supporting us through the entire weekend. We thank them for all of their support. On a personal note, I want to thank everyone for making a stressful and challenging weekend so much fun and for providing such support through a tough competition. I know I will look back on the weekend as one of the most fun and most successful of my law school career.

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Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You:
ABA Labor and Employment Law
Trial Advocacy Competition

The ABA Labor and Employment Law Competition, as the title suggests, focuses solely on labor and employment issues. This year, the trial problem involves an alleged retaliatory discharge of a whistleblower in violation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act’s Whistleblower Provision. The plaintiff is Chris Smith, a former Product Manager at the defendant company FAST, Inc. The plaintiff, represented by Randah Atassi and Jayson Serrano, is alleging that he was fired from FAST as a result of bringing certain financial discrepancies to light in FAST’s public filings. FAST, represented by Jisoo Kim and Tom Kelley, denies that he was fired in retaliation for bringing up the financial discrepancies but rather that Chris Smith was fired for being insubordinate, moody, and inappropriate in his communications.  

To give a little bit of background to the case, Chris Smith was hired at FAST as a Product Manager in October of 2002. Soon after his hire, he impressed many of his co-workers and supervisors with his ability to analyze data and his enthusiasm for his work. In March of 2003, as a result of his analytical abilities, Chris Smith was put on a special team convened for the purposes of developing a new model to calculate product renewal rates at FAST. However, once Chris Smith began to compare some of the financial data given to him, he found discrepancies in product renewal rates between his products and what FAST was reporting in its public filings to the Securities Exchange Commission. He reported his findings to his supervisor, Sandy Lost, as well as Vice President of his Department, Sean Black. Chris Smith is alleging it was this incident that ultimately led to his termination from FAST.  

FAST obviously has a different take on the case. FAST is claiming that once Chris Smith was put on this special team, he began to obsess over the renewal rates, even after he was told that the figures he had calculated were inaccurate. FAST is also claiming that Chris Smith was sending excessive amount of emails to various executives in the company, many of them considered unprofessional, rude, and inappropriate. In addition, FAST claims that it was around this time Chris Smith began exhibiting mood-swings at work that had an effect on his supervisor, Sandy Lost, and that these were the basis of his termination.   

This trial problem is particularly challenging because the defense does not have a key witness, Sandy Lost, to testify at trial and must work around the hearsay issues when presenting its case in chief. But both sides are working hard to represent their client to the fullest with the help of the trio of coaches Deborah Bussert, and JMLS trial team alums Josh Wolkomir and Kelly Heaney. So who’s telling the truth? What was the reason for Chris Smith’s termination? We’ll have to wait until the jury decides on November 21.

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Panel Discussion Series: Criminal Trials

The Center for Advocacy and Dispute Resolution and the Trial Advocacy and Dispute Resolution Board are pleased to announce their third and final panel discussion of the semester. This panel will involve a discussion of Criminal Trials.

After two amazing panel program, the Center and the Board are looking forward to this next panel. We have been in contact with many legal professionals to sit as a member of the panel discussion. In attendance on the panel will be several experienced, well-established legal professionals. This includes Brian Holmes and Guy Lisuzzo of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office; Erica Reddick of the Cook County Public Defender’s Office; Beau B. Brindley of the Law Offices of Beau B. Brindley; and, as a special guest, the Honorable Marvin Luckman, Cook County Circuit Court Judge.

For those of you who missed the previous events, panel discussions are held on the third Thursday of each month, from Noon to 1:00 p.mm in Room 503. The Criminal Trial Panel Discussion will be held on Thursday, November 19th. Food will be served and the event is open to the general John Marshall population. Trial Ad Council members will receive an activity hour for attending the panel.

Hope to see you there!

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A Q&A With John Spieske

John Spieske, coach of the JMLS ABA Arbitration team, and a 1994 graduate of John Marshall, took a few minutes after practice to answer some questions for Nota Bene.  John is a sole practitioner, and his practice is focused on business transactions and commercial litigation.  

Q. Why did you decide to dedicate your time to coaching a trial team?
A. As a 3L, I competed in the client counseling competition, kind of on a whim.  I had great support from the faculty in preparing for the competition, and during that preparation, I felt my skills as a lawyer really mushroom.  I wanted to be on the other side of that and help students realize their potential.

Q. If you don’t mind my asking, how did you do in the client counseling competition?  
A. We won the regional competition and went on to nationals at Pepperdine.  Southern California in the winter was very nice.  We did well enough at Pepperdine to advance to the international competition in Scotland.

Q. You also teach a few classes here at John Marshall, right?
A. Yes, I teach counseling and negotiations.  I first started teaching in 1999, and then after a few years away, my interest in teaching was reignited after judging the international mediation competition here last summer.

Q. So, you teach counseling and negotiations, and you are coaching the arbitration team; why ADR?
A. I have a strong interest in alternative dispute resolution.  The concept of helping people find principled “win/win” solutions to their problems fits into my humanistic view of life.

Q. How important is it for law students to become involved in extra-curricular activities like competitions, Trial Advocacy Council, or Moot Court?
A. Incredibly important.  If you choose to have a passive experience in law school, you will not realize how great law school really can be.  After my first year of law school, I was miserable.  I decided to push myself to become more involved: more involved in class discussions, and with student organizations.  That involvement drastically changed my John Marshall experience, and I now look at it as one of the most important experiences of my life.

Q. Do you have any other advice for current John Marshall students?
A. Find a mentor.  It will help you find direction in your legal career, and help you to meet other lawyers in your anticipated practice area.    

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