Rules for the National Student Negotiation Competition 2024
Competition 2023

©CEDR 2024

National Student Negotiation Competition 2024
Format and Rules
Introduction
The National Student Negotiation Competition is the annual competition to select two entries torepresent England and Wales respectively at the International Competition Finals.
The organisation of the competition is managed by the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR),
who are also the national competition’s sponsors in conjunction with The University of Law. The 2024
competition will be run in a hybrid format. The regional competition is run in regional heats, including
one online only heat. The training day and Final are in person. Whilst many of the rules are largely thesame as previous years, please note that the rules below are the final rules for this year’s competition
and these rules will prevail over all others. The final decision on all appeals over Rules will rest with theCompetition’s organisers, CEDR. The Head Judge is Graham Massie and his decision is final.
The competition takes place over two rounds: The Regional Competition and the Final.
The schedule is as follows:
Wednesday 24 January 2024:

Entry Deadline

Thursday 1 February 2024:

Negotiation Webinar, virtually via Zoom

Saturday 10 February 2024:

London Regional Heat, at The University of Law, Moorgate

Saturday 10 February 2024:

Leeds Regional Heat, at The University of Law, Leeds

Saturday 10 February 2024

South West England Regional Heat, (TBC)

Saturday 17 February 2024:

Online Regional Heat, virtually via Zoom

Saturday 2 March 2024:

Training Day for finalists, at CEDR's offices, 100 St. Paul'sChurchyard, London

Saturday 23 March 2023:

National Final and dinner, The University of Law
Moorgate, London

Rules
1.1 Eligibility and Entry•

The competition is open to all Universities and Law Schools in England and Wales.

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Teams must be made up of two students of the University currently engaged in study of anundergraduate or postgraduate course.

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Each institution may submit a maximum of two teams to the competition.

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Entries must be submitted with the support of the institution and entries from lone students orstudent pairs will not be accepted.

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Each entry must be submitted with an entry fee of £90 (£75 + VAT) per team entered.

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The deadline for entries is the 24st January 2024 but early application is encouraged as we dohave a maximum number of teams and reserve the right to fill the competition and thenoperate a reserve list once we have reached 60 teams.

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Teams on the reserve list are not charged until their place in the competition has been
confirmed.

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At the point of entry, the institution does not need to say who the team-members of the teams
are.

•Students may compete in the National Student Negotiation Competition twice.

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However, a student who has previously reached the National Final of the competition may notcompete in the competition again.

•

It is up to each institution to determine how team-members are selected. This is frequently by
the way of an internal competition.

Regional Competitions
This year, the regional competitions will take place in-person and online. The in-person regional
competitions will take place on the 10th of February 2024 at the University of Law Leeds, the Universityof Law Moorgate, London and a South West Regional (TBC). The online regional competition will takeplace on the 17th of February 2024. We will try to allocate teams to one of the regional competitions
depending on their preference however we cannot guarantee your choice of regional heat. Early
applicants are likely to receive their first choice of location.
2.1 Instructions and Confidential information•

General information about the scenarios and confidential information for each party will besent out to the teams two weeks prior to their regional competition. Competitors must notdisclose or discuss their confidential information to any other team (including from the same
institution). Deliberate breaches of confidential information will result in the team who
disclosed the confidential information’s disqualification from the competition. CEDR also
reserve the right to take whatever other sanctions are deemed appropriate, including
disqualifying the team who received the information.

•

The negotiation scenarios are designed to cover a range of practical negotiation situations.
Whilst the scenarios are based in different areas of law, no especial knowledge of any legal area
is required and we do not expect competitors to do extensive legal research in order to takepart. We are looking for realistic strategies and good negotiation skills, not extensive legal
research.

•

The scenarios are written to test a broad range of skills. In the regional rounds, one scenario
will be based around a dispute (which may or may not contain a legal claim) and one scenario
will be based around a negotiation where there is no current legal claim.

•

In the final of the 2024 competition, one of the rounds will involve a negotiation between two
parties from different international backgrounds. Cultural sensitivity and awareness innegotiation will be a marked component in the final for this round as an additional specificcategory. This is to test finalists’ ability to work sensitively culturally prior to the International
Competition.

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Competition 2023

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2.2 Coaches•

Teams are permitted to bring a coach or observer into their negotiation. If online, all observers
and coaches watching teams must be on mute and have cameras off during the negotiationand may not signal to the teams in any way. All judges reserve the right to ask observers toleave if they are being distracting.

•During a round if a team takes a 5-minute time out, the coach must remain in the negotiation
room and is not allowed to go out with their team.

•Observers and coaches must leave the room during judges’ deliberations and whilst the teams
are preparing their self-reflection.

•

Under no circumstances are team members allowed to speak with anyone about theirperformance in the period of preparing the self-reflection. Any team who violates this ruleleaves themselves liable to disqualification.

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Coaches can be present whilst their team is giving their self-reflection to the judges but will
not attend the self-reflection of the other team.

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Feedback will be given to both teams jointly and coaches can be present for this.

•Where a coach is coaching two teams with different scenarios in a negotiation session, theymust not let the other team know any scenario information that has been learnt from watching
the first session prior to that team competing on that scenario. Any university who violates
this rule leaves themselves liable to disqualification

Format
3.1 General Format•

Each team will compete in 2 rounds at the regional heat. Each round will be a two-way between
two teams from different institutions. The teams will compete against a different team in thesecond of the two regional rounds.

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In the in-person regional rounds, there will be two sessions of negotiations with each teamcompeting in both sessions.

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In the online regional round, 30 teams compete on the day. Because of this number of teams,
the competition is structured so that that there are 3 sessions of negotiations but that eachteam will sit one of the sessions out. For example, a team may compete in Scenario 1 in
Negotiation Round 1, and Scenario 2 in Negotiation Round 3. They would not compete in
Negotiation round 2. Please consult the team structure to see which session you are sittingout.

•

Each round consists of a 50-minute negotiation. The judges will observe and call time. Eachteam may call up to one 5-minute Time Out during the negotiation. The time will continue
whilst this happens. At the end of the 50 minutes, the teams will have 10 minutes to prepare
self-reflections on how the negotiation went. The Self-Reflection must be carried out entirelyon the team’s own and the team are not allowed to discuss how the negotiation went withanyone else, including coaches.
The team will base their reflection on these questions:

Rules for the National Student Negotiation Competition 2024
Competition 2023

©CEDR 2024(a) "In reflecting on the entire negotiation, if you faced a similar situation tomorrow, what
would you do the same and what would you do differently?"(b) "How well did your strategy work in relation to the outcome?"•

The teams will then present their self-analyses to the judges individually for 5 minutes. The
judges will then score the teams.

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Each round will be judged by a panel of at least 2 judges. The judges will be allowed to confer
about the negotiation in general and how it went before the self-analysis, but will not discuss
their intended scoring (or individual scores). The judges will all score individually.

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The judges will comment to both teams on how the negotiation went after they have scoredthe teams. The judges will not reveal their scoring to the competitors.

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Specific Format for the 2024 Online Regional Heat
All of the above rules apply to the 2024 online regional heat. Additionally, because of the nature of
running one of the heats online, we will be running the following format rules:
4.1 Set Up Requirements
For those competing in the competition online, all competitors and judges will need to have thefollowing:•

A computer with internet capability, microphone and webcam.

We recommend finding a quiet spot for participating in the competition where you will not be
disturbed. Please do try and ensure that the location looks neutral and not distracting. We would
encourage you to ensure that there is enough light in the room so that you can be seen.
We expect most participants to dial in from their own computer, rather than coming from the same
laptop. This is so that all participants can be seen by the judges and participate fully. If you are comingfrom one computer, both competitors must be clearly visible on the screen.
We also would advise you to use a computer to connect rather than a mobile or tablet. This is tominimise problems and ensure that people can be seen.
Unfortunately, we cannot be held responsible for technical issues and if a participant has issues withinternet or similar, it is their responsibility to fix this.
4.2 Competition Rooms
We will be using Zoom Breakout rooms to facilitate the competition. For each round of thecompetition, you will be placed in a breakout room for that specific round. E.g. Team A plays TeamE, teams A and Team E will be placed in a specific breakout room for this. There are also individual
team breakout rooms connected to each breakout room to allow for Time Outs and preparation ofreflective session.

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So, a competition room would look like:
Competition Room 1: Team A vs Team E• Main competition room where teams compete and judges stay for entire time.
Breakout Room 1.1: (Team A)•

Private room for Team A to use for time outs and also for preparing their self-reflection

Breakout Room 1.2 (Team E)•

Private room for Team E to use for time out and also for preparing their self-reflection.

Once all team members have been placed, we will then add judges to the particular rooms. The judges
for the room will be in charge of starting timing and ensuring that the competition runs to time.
4.3 Participating in the Competition Online – Additional Points.
Logging In
In the online regional competition, all student participants must log in to the zoom link. You will joina mainroom with all other competitors. Judges will be in a separate break out room.
Setting your nameFor the purposes of the competition, please set your Zoom name, to your team name and then yourname. e.g. Team A – Joe Bloggs.
Do not put anything in your profile or in your background that indicates which University/College
you are at. This is to avoid bias.
Negotiating – Using Gallery View
Teams will negotiate as normal. We advise teams to view themselves in Gallery view so that they cansee everyone.
So that teams are not distracted by the judges, after welcoming themselves, during the competition,
we advise the judges to mute themselves and turn their cameras off.
4.4 Functions Available during the Competition
The Chat Function is available during the competition, with the following two uses.
Chat to everyone
Team Members can send messages in Chat to everyone in the Competition Room. You may choose
to do this, for example, to share an agenda etc.
Text in chats must be that only – text. You may not put in links or any other functions.
Private Chat to teammate
You can also use the private chat to send a message to your teammate, in the same way that you
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may pass a note in real life.
Tip: Do not overuse this. Overuse is likely to prove distracting and lower relationship with the otherteam, in the same way that constantly passing notes would go badly in real life.
Chat Uses not permitted.
You are not allowed to use Chat for any function other than that outlined above.
Under no circumstances may you send a private chat to someone other than your teammate. If you
wish to send something to the other team this must be in chat to everyone, so that the judges can see
it.
Any threatening or abusive language in the chat function will result in the team’s disqualification fromthe competition.
Share Screen
Share Screen can be used during the competition in the negotiation rooms only. However, it is advised
to only use it minimally and for a particular task. This is because it is important that we see your faces
and to prevent a team from keeping share screen on for the entire competition. Teams can be marked
down for incorrect use of share screen.
If you wish to send text, you should use the chat functions outlined above.
4.5 Time Out
Teams can take a 5-minute time out to talk their partners during the competition. If you wish to do
this, you must follow the following procedure.
The team must announce that they want to take a time out to the judges.
There is an associated private breakout room for each team next to the competition room. Afterannouncing they want to take a time out, the Team members can move themselves to that room to
speak in private. Teams can move themselves back to the main competition room. If teams run over
5 minutes, the judges will move the team back to the break out room.
4.6 Speaking to the Judges at the End of the Session
At the end of the 50 minutes, the negotiation session will finish.
The judges in the rooms will ask the two teams to leave the session at this point where they will goback to their individual break out rooms. Teams can confer amongst themselves at this point, but theymust not talk with anyone else.
The teams will need to come back to their room at the appropriate time. This will be indicated by thejudges in advance. The judge from your room will bring you back when they want to speak to you.
There will be a final chance for the judges to give feedback and then the session will end.
4.7 Breaks Between Sessions
There will be breaks between the sessions for participants and judges. During these breaks, we would
ask you to log out and to log back in before each main negotiation round you are participating in, when
we will do a register.
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Rules for the National Student Negotiation Competition 2024

Marking Criteria – Ranking and Judges’ scores
Teams are scored in two ways for the competition: a ranking system and a judging score.
The ranking system is the primary way that teams progress through the competition. Teams areranked on their performance by the judges compared with the other teams that the judges haveobserved on the same scenario. The teams with the lowest ranking scores will progress to the Final.
In the Final, ranking is used to determine the teams’ final positions.
Judges’ scores are used to break tie-breaks and also to provide feedback to competitors. Judges may
also use their scoring to aid their decision in team ranking; however, this is not compulsory. See below.
5.1 Ranking
During the day, the judges will observe the same scenario performed three times. After having seen
all the teams perform, the judges will rank the six teams that they have observed from the mosteffective negotiating team to the least effective negotiating team. This will be a ranking of 1-6 with 1
being the most effective team, through to 6 being the least effective team in that judge’s perspective.
Judges rank the teams independently from each other. The reason for using ranking is that it removes
the issue of a particularly harsh or sympathetic panel of judges skewing the results. As all judges are
required to rank one team as best and one as least good, all teams have equal chance of obtaining
these ranking marks.
Judges are encouraged to consider their ranking in relation to the scoring criteria, however, this is not
absolute and they may deviate from following the scoring order if they consider that there are reasonsfor doing otherwise.
The teams with the lowest ranking score from the judges will progress through to the Final. If two
teams have a joint ranking score, the judging criteria scores will be used to break a tie break. In theunlikely event that two teams are still tied following ranking and tie-break scores, the team with thefewest negotiation ethics errors will proceed. If the teams are still tied, the head judge will review thescores and determine which team should proceed.
5.2 Judging criteria
Overall, as mentioned above, we are particularly keen to see realistic negotiations based on what theclient would actually want and which achieve a practicable solution. Overly theoretical solutions will
do less well. It is critical that teams understand how their strategies would play in real life.

There are 8 criteria for scoring. A sample scoring sheet can be found in the documents section. Eachcriterion is marked on a scale from 1-7. Lower scores are therefore better. An example is below:
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

HighlyEffective

Effective

Somewhat
Effective

NeutralSomewhat
Ineffective

Ineffective

Very
Ineffective

The 8 criteria are:
1. Negotiation Planning
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Judging from their overall performance and apparent strategy, how would you describe how
well-prepared for the negotiation this team was?
2. Teamwork
How would you describe how effective these negotiators were in working together as a team;sharing responsibility and providing mutual backup?
3. Relationship between the negotiating teams
How would you describe the way in which this team managed its relationship with the otherteam, either contributing or detracting from achieving the client's best interests?
4. Information Gathering
How would you describe the way in which this team gathered information to develop theirunderstanding and strategy during the negotiation?
5. Bargaining
How would you describe how effective this team was in bargaining with the other team,developing options, managing the time and the nature of any concessions made; holding a
position or being flexible as appropriate?
6. Outcome of session
In light of both the negotiation and the self-analysis, and regardless of whether agreement
was reached, how would you describe the outcome of the session in respect of it having served
the client's goals and interests?
7. Negotiation Ethics
To what extent did this negotiating team observe or violate the ethical requirements of aprofessional relationship?
This section is marked separately. If Negotiation ethics have been observed, then the teamwill score 1. If ethics have been violated somewhat the team will score 5, if ethics have been
violated the team will score 6, if ethics have been violated strongly the team will be scored
7. In cases where ethics have been violated or violated strongly, the head of thecompetition will consider whether the team should be penalised further, including being
disqualified from the competition.
Behaviour which would be considered unethical includes, but is not limited to,• Lying• Going against the brief of the client or the client’s best interests• Breaching confidentiality• Intimidation, coercion or bribery• Inappropriate collusion between the two sides• Aggression (as opposed to assertiveness) or threatening behaviour• Any behaviour which would bring the profession into disrepute9Rules for the National Student Negotiation Competition 2024

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Self Analysis

Teams should begin this 10-minute period by addressing the following questions:(a) "In reflecting on the entire negotiation, if you faced a similar situation tomorrow, what
would you do the same and what would you do differently?"(b) "How well did your strategy work in relation to the outcome?"
Based on this team's self-analysis, how would you describe how well the team has learned
from this negotiation and how adequate was their process of self-analysis?

CEDR Training Day for Finalists and Final
5.1 CEDR Training Day
This will take place on Saturday the 2nd of March 2024 for the finalists. It is intended as a day ofnegotiation skills taught by two of CEDR’s Negotiation faculty. It is not part of the competition andthere is no scoring, rather it is intended to give all finalists professional skills that they can use inprofessional practice.
6.2 Final••••

The final consists of three rounds. 1 3-way negotiation and then 2 two-way negotiations. The
rounds will be judged in the same way as the regional competition.
The one exception is that the three-way teams will be ranked 1-3. The judges will then rank
the 4 teams they see doing the same scenario in the two-way from 1-4.
The scores from the regionals do not carry over to the Finals.
The winners, second and third place will be announced on the evening of the Final. The winners
will receive a trophy, proceed to the International Competition, and host the following year’scompetition final.

Tips
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Negotiation is not a race. Finding an agreement as quickly as possible is not the point and teams
who do so normally do badly.
Teams are being marked as teams. If one member of the team’s contribution is not clear or
negligible, the team will score less well.
The negotiation is taking place in 2024 not the 1980s. Overly aggressive “show me the money”
style tactics are rarely effective in the real world (particularly when you have to work with thoseyou’re getting agreement with in the future) and bulldozing the other side is unlikely to be a wellreceived tactic by the judges.
The scenarios are written in a broad way – there is no perfect solution and what is the correct
strategy for the negotiation will depend on many factors including how the particular team you
are negotiating with comes to the negotiation
It is always useful to imagine that you have to debrief to your client afterwards. Use this toinfluence how you negotiate.
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