From 15 – 17 March 2024, Bucerius MLB student Anna Karoliny Fonseca Cometti took part in the three-day LWOW Sprint event hosted by IE University in Madrid. Over the course of 3 intense and challenging days, participants were allocated to talented and multidisciplinary teams composed of a mix of intergenerational legal and business professionals, academics, and law/business school students from around the world. The teams were sponsored by a corporate legal department, law firm or law/legal tech company and worked to solve real business-of-law problems or social responsibility challenges.
The Law Without Walls Sprint 2024 was taught with the innovative 3-4-5 method (3 Phases-48 Hacking Hours-5 Stages) and included collaboration exercises, intensive hacking as well as a mini-composium. Anna Karoliny Fonseca Cometti talked to us about his/her experience.
What attracted you to participate in Law Without Walls?
Even before graduating from law school in Brazil, I started nurturing an interest in the intersection between law and business. That was one of the reasons why I chose the MLB Program - one of my best professional decisions so far. The possibility of participating in LWOW came as a chance to apply the business and legal knowledge that I gathered in the mandatory modules as well as in the electives I chose.
What's the first thing that comes to your mind when thinking about the LWOW experience?
The easy answer would be to mention the prize our team won. However, that is definitely not all that made the experience worthwhile. The first thing that comes to my mind is to have had the opportunity to represent Disney, which was so important to me in my childhood. Luckily, we were able to develop a solution that will be implemented in the Disney legal department and we were fortunate enough to win a prize for it.
How intensive was the preparation for the pitches?
The 7-week preparation was quite intensive. We had many readings and meetings each week, together with the classes for the other electives. However, if you are interested in the topic, following the preparation can be really rewarding and fun.
Tell us more about your LWOW Sprint challenge?
I was a student hacker in Team B, sponsored by Dentons and Disney. Our topic challenge was “Filling the Leadership Gap: How can we incentivize and empower in-house leaders to further develop their leadership style so that they foster a common culture of community, growth, and engagement that aligns with the Disney spirit and Disney LGA’s (Legal & Global Affairs) cultural pillars?”.
In response to this, we developed “All Ears” which is a feedback tool allowing Disney’s legal team to share their ideas - ensuring everyone’s voice is instrumental in shaping Disney’s magical story. The tool has almost no operation costs and is based on 360° feedback throughout the whole department.
Together with other different resources, it is aimed to empower employees to take risks and fully exercise their functions - especially those in the middle management group.
What inspired you most on this tournament?
It may sound as a cliche, but being part of the Disney team was truly inspiring. Additionally, my team was composed of people coming from different countries and backgrounds not related to law. On the last day of the competition, when we had to prepare our pitch, I realised how well we all connected and how everyone felt inspired by their peers. We were really concentrating on delivering the best we could, but we were already happy to have made friends throughout the magical journey.
Will you stay in touch with your team members?
Definitely. Every now and then we still send messages on the WhatsApp group or interact on LinkedIn or Instagram. Besides that, I also had the chance of getting to know people out with my group who I will stay in touch with.
