The Georgia State Law Intellectual Property (IP) moot court team earned best draft in the Sixth Annual Intellectual Property LawMeet National Rounds, held virtually on Nov. 4. Before advancing to the national competition, the team won best draft and best team at the Eastern Regional IP LawMeet competition.
For the competition, Steven Williams (J.D. ’17), Seth Meyerson (J.D. ’17) and Mitchell Foley (J.D. ’17) drafted and negotiated a software development, license and hosting agreement between an education technology company and a company providing training solutions for home health aides.
They competed against five other teams from Charlotte Law School, University of Mississippi School of Law, University of Colorado Law School (two teams) and Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law.
Steven Rocci, senior partner at BakerHostetler LLP’s Philadelphia office, moderated the national rounds and judges included Fred Wilf, managing partner at Wilftek LLC; Kacey Cahill, executive director of strategic software procurement at Comcast; Alex Lempiner, corporate counsel and secretary at Rembrandt IP Management LLC; and Karl Okamoto, professor of law at Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law and founder of LawMeets.
Elizabeth Lester (J.D. ’05) helped coach the team and was impressed by their preparation and performance at both competitions.
“The team’s amazing success is attributable to the students’ investment in learning about the nuances of contract drafting, technology licensing, and negotiation strategies, over a very short period of time,” Lester said. “The students consistently impressed me with their commitment to better understand how these complex issues would translate from the competition to real practice. I am honored to have had the opportunity to watch the students grow throughout the competition and look forward to watching their legal careers develop.”
Though the team wasn’t selected at national champions, they are proud of their accomplishment. “After sweeping regionals, we are extremely happy to have earned one top honor at nationals,” said Williams.
Okamoto founded LawMeets in 2010 as a way to deliver practical skills exercises to students interested in transactional law. LawMeets organized the first IP competition in 2011.