LOS ANGELES—Law firm Pircher, Nichols &Meeks has completed its second annual jointventure challenge with UCLA's MilkenInstitute for students at UCLA andUniversity of California, Berkley. The challengeis intended to give the students a real-life experience intransactional law before entering theworkforce.

For the challenge, the law firm drafted two faux transactionsfor teams, which has a minimum of one law student and oneMBA candidate, about the jointventure interests of a fictional company, Leverage Brothers. Thefirst venture opportunity was with successful hotel while thesecond was a venture that owned thousands of undevelopedresidential lots in Phoenix, AZ.

Students on each team answered a series of questions based onthe opportunities, which also included a realistic set ofprovisions. Daniel Nagal, a student in UCLA'sAnderson School of Business, and SteveSerna, a student in UCLA's School of Law,were the UCLA winners. The UCLA Milken Institute awarded them witha $3,000 cash prize, which was presented by KevorkZoryan of Morgan Stanley andStevens Carey of Pircher, Nichols & Meeks. Forthe University of California, Berkley challenge, ArekMalinowski, Ben Bradbury, Mary Loum and KimMcGinnis were named the winners. LeoPircher, an alumnus at the Boalt LawSchool, awarded the team with a similar, unnamedprize.