UNLV's William S. Boyd School of Law Negotiation Team, consisting of third-year law students Kara Hendricks and Roger Steggerda, placed second in the national finals of the American Bar Association Negotiations Competition held recently in San Diego.

The UNLV team tied with Georgetown University for the second-place honors.

Law professor and team coach Jeff Stempel said the students earned their way to the national finals by placing third in the western regional competition that was held in Los Angeles in November.

"Everyone at the law school is really thrilled with Kara and Roger's performance," Stempel said of the students who are members of the charter class of 2001. "Last fall, they competed against more than 170 teams, many from law schools with long-established dispute resolution programs. I've been in legal education for more than 15 years and I've never known a new program to place this well in the very first year of competition. Placing second in the nation shows that UNLV law students are already as strong as any in the nation."

The topic of this year's competition was E-commerce and the Internet. Teams were given fictitious sets of facts relating to issues facing companies on the World Wide Web, such as copyright infringements, and mergers and acquisitions of Internet companies. Competitors faced real-world negotiation challenges in trying to meet their clients' needs.