LawMeets, the transactional lawyering competition created by Professor Karl Okamoto, was selected for a new accelerator at Duke Law School’s Tech Lab.

LawMeets was one of just seven projects chosen for the inaugural class of the accelerator, which helps startup ventures grow into large enterprises.  

Okamoto, director of the Kline School of Law’s Business and Entrepreneurial Law program, created LawMeets to fill a void that existed for law students who wish to pursue careers in transactional law.  LawMeets established a model of transactional law competitions that allow students to demonstrate and hone their skills in negotiating complex deals.  The simulated negotiations are reviewed by seasoned transactional lawyers who conclude each competition by demonstrating how they would have navigated an identical deal.

Since the first LawMeet was held in 2010, the competition model has grown exponentially, with separate contests in transactional law and intellectual property law now held in geographic regions that feed into an annual national meet.  Separate Startup and Bankruptcy LawMeets were added in the last year.  

Okamoto hopes the LawMeets model will have an even greater impact on legal education, which has traditionally allowed litigation to overshadow transactional law.

The accelerator will help LawMeets reach its goal of becoming the world's leading provider of competency-based learning for aspiring transactional lawyers. Leveraging its popular competitions, the venture is developing curricula, virtual and face-to-face instruction and an industry leading assessment and credentialing platform.