Swansea Students Champion Negotiators of England and Wales

Every year students from Swansea Law School can try-out to participate in 30 different competitions, both within the University and externally. One of the flagship competitions that we send teams to is the England and Wales Negotiation Competition, organised by the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR). This year, for the first time, a Swansea team won the overall competition, earning the right to go on to represent Wales at the International Negotiations Competition, being hosted by London in July 2025.

All law schools can send two teams to the competition, and this year the teams were Samuel Berkely (LLM Professional Legal Practice) partnered with Maggie Jessop (3rd year), and Emily Law partnered with Melissa James (both 2nd years). The first stage was the online regional competition, with 18 other teams competing from around England and Wales. The students had to negotiate complex scenarios including ski-resort services with relations icier than the slopes, and a talent contract discussions with unknown information all over the place. The students worked hard to prepare and were rewarded as both teams qualified for the National Competition- the first time that both Swansea teams have qualified for Nationals from the same regional.

All roads led to Leeds in March (and thankfully the roads were not busy for the 5 hour drive!) The students, again, prepared thoroughly and with great commercial awareness, and were constantly bouncing ideas off each other and challenging thoughts (when they weren’t challenging their driver/coach’s music tastes!) The National Competition involved the twelve qualifiers from the Regionals, many of whom were post-graduate students. This time there were 3 negotiations to be navigated in one day, including a tense 3-way negotiation between AI firms, a naval negotiation infused with tragedy, and road-mapping a potential deal for a tech firm to purchase land in a town that had seen better days. The different natures of these scenarios requires the students to showcase a range of skills and negotiation strategies and both teams gained a lot from the experience and the feedback. Particular thanks to the exceptional feedback from two of the winners from 2024- Cliona Tanner-Smith and Charlie Procter. It was brilliant to have feedback from previous winners and the comments were exceptionally insightful.

The day ended with a dinner at the Met Hotel before the results were announced. Sam and Maggie were enormously happy to be announced as the overall winners of the competition. Although Swansea have been the highest ranked Welsh team before, this is the first time we have won the overall competition and it was a reflection of both Sam and Maggie’s hard work and commitment. A huge congratulations as well to Melissa and Emily in their debut competition who finished the third best undergraduate team in England and Wales and demonstrated exceptional skills (including a rare ‘bloody brilliant’ from their coach after one round) and are looking forward to developing their skills in their final year.

After the competition, Sam said that “I'm incredibly honoured to have represented Swansea University at the CEDR Negotiation Competition and even more proud that Maggie and I came away as national winners. The competition was a fantastic opportunity to put everything Matthew [coach] taught us into a practical environment, and it really brought those lessons to life. I’m excited to now represent Wales at the international competition later this year! A massive thank you to the University for supporting and funding the trip as well as the backing from Matthew and the teamwork and collaboration from Maggie, as well as Melissa and Emily in the other Swansea team.”

Maggie added “"I am incredibly grateful to CEDR for hosting this event and generously sharing their time and expertise. The skills I have gained throughout this competition have been invaluable and will undoubtedly stay with me throughout my career and personal life. A heartfelt thank you to Swansea University for supporting us through the competition.”

Sam and Maggie go on to represent Wales at the Internationals in July.

We are also exceptionally grateful to Acuity Law for their support of the team and the Communication Skills Programme this academic year.

For anyone interested in learning more about the Swansea Law School Communication Skills Programme, contact Matthew Parry (m.j.parry@swansea.ac.uk) or go to our Instagram account- swan_law_skills