Team Australia triumphs

Three UNSW Law students have defeated teams from 16 universities to win a prestigious international negotiation and arbitration competition held in Japan.

Holly Lam, Kelvin Lam and Wen Wu joined with students from Sydney University and ANU to form 'Team Australia' and win the 6th Intercollegiate Negotiation and Arbitration Competition.

In order to gain a place on the team the students had to compete with their peers from UNSW, Sydney University and ANU, all of whom are collaborators in the Australian Network for Japanese Law (ANJeL), which supports this competition as part of its brief to promote research and teaching in Japanese law.

According to the UNSW student's supervisor Leon Wolff, the competition provides students with a number of new skills.

"The students learn collaboration with their own peers and those at other law schools and 'real-world' negotiating and arbitration," he says. "They also learn about cross-cultural lawyering. As the only foreign law team allowed to take part in the competition, the students need to be familiar with Japanese business and social culture so that they can have a maximum impact in their negotiations with the other side."

Speaking of her involvement in the competition Holly Lam says: "I'm deliriously happy that we won, while also feeling really sad that it's now over. The thing I'm most thankful for is not so much the win, but that we made a truly fantastic team that managed to laugh our way through all the stress and challenges."