University at Buffalo students take second in international case competition

By Kevin Manne

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Four University at Buffalo students in management and law took second place in the Canada-United States Law Institute (CUSLI) Law and Business Challenge, held March 30-31 in Cleveland, Ohio.

The team was made up of Robert Caggiano, JD ’17, of Staten Island; Stephen Joyce, JD/MBA ’17, of Buffalo; Naeim Kahnjani, BS/MBA ’17, of Williamsville; and Niharika Malik, MBA ’17, of Meerut, India.

In the competition, the teams posed as a large, U.S.-based computer manufacturer and service provider, and were tasked with negotiating an acquisition of a Canada-based mobile device software startup.

“The competition gave us an opportunity to use the skills we learned in both the School of Law and the School of Management,” says Joyce. “We quickly realized how important it would be to rely on the different skills of each individual teammate in order to negotiate successfully.”

Other teams in the competition hailed from universities in Canada and the U.S., including Case Western Reserve University School of Law, Western Law School and University of Windsor Faculty of Law.

Professionals and representatives from industry served as competition judges, from such organizations as the Ted Rogers School of Management, National Post, Dickinson Wright LLP, People Services, the Johns Hopkins Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, and Cliffs Natural Resources.

Participation in the competition was supported in part by the UB School of Management and UB School of Law.