FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A vice president of a local food company wants to introduce a new Asian food line. A marketing consultant has successfully introduced gourmet Asian pizzas into other markets and is eager to work for the company. However, she has a few stipulations. It’s your job as a mediator to reach an agreement between the two.

This is the sort of negotiation law students conducted at the American Bar Association Regional Negotiations Competition on Nov. 4-5 at the University of Oklahoma. This year’s top UA competitors were third-year students Darlene Weston and Tracy Oates.

Weston and Oates aren’t stereotypical law students. Dressed casually and joking freely, the two women agree that a good lawyer tries to settle any dispute before it goes to trial. Settlement requires negotiation.

“Ninety-eight percent of cases never go to court,” Oates said. “And the best negotiations are amiable in the end.”

A former archeologist and garden designer, Oates sees law as a significant career move. After she graduates in May, she will start her own law firm in Fayetteville, where she plans to do a little of everything, she said, but she hopes to focus on mediation and negotiation.

“And writing wills for my friends,” she joked.

“We’re not in it for the show,” Weston said, nodding in agreement. Weston wore an Arkansas Razorback sweatshirt and talked passionately about her profession. “We want to negotiate the best situation we can for our clients.”

Weston said the two are serious about their practice, but not so serious they can’t act like themselves both inside and outside of the courtroom.

Both women approach the idea of practicing law with the assumption that negotiations don’t always have to be adversarial. In fact, the most successful cases, they agreed, often depend on good communications.

“The most effective attorneys I've seen in practice are those who focus on communicating with their clients and negotiating cases with their client's best interests in mind,” Weston said.

As mothers, both teammates have done a good deal of negotiating in their personal lives as well. “Women are used to negotiating in life,” Weston said.

After graduation, Weston will work for Ellis, Cupps and Cole, P.C., in Cassville, Mo., not too far from her hometown, Monett, Mo.

Their faculty coach, Tim Tarvin, said the two competed against the eventual winner in the first round, “in what one of the judges called a very tough decision.”

“All of our teams did an excellent job of representing our law school against stiff competition in one of the toughest regionals ever,” Tarvin said. Tarvin is associate clinical professor at the University of Arkansas School of Law Legal Clinic.

First-year law students Cherise Bozemen of Chicago and Shyretta McCrackin of Memphis and second-year law students T. J. Fowler of Little Rock and Winston Collier of Searcy also represented the University of Arkansas School of Law at this regional competition.

Both Weston and Oates agreed that competitions like these teach law students about mediation and negotiation in the “real world.”

For more information about negotiations, whether competitive and/or real world, contact the School of Law at (479) 575-6111 or http://law.uark.edu.