Holland & Knight Conducts 2025 Joint Venture Challenge Competition

CENTURY CITY, Calif. (March 26, 2025) – Holland & Knight recently completed two Real Estate Joint Venture Challenges. The JV Challenge events brought together graduate-level law, business and real estate development students from the University of California, Berkeley (Cal), University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and University of Southern California (USC) in two separate competitions.

The first competition was conducted on Friday, March 7, at USC and involved 24 USC students; the second competition occurred a week later on Friday, March 14, at UCLA and involved 12 Cal students and 12 UCLA students.

The JV Challenge is an annual event that was organized and conducted previously by Pircher, Nichols & Meeks, commencing in 2013. In 2022, the lawyers of Pircher, Nichols & Meeks joined Holland & Knight and established the firm's Century City office, and this year the events were conducted for the third time by Holland & Knight.

The JV Challenge provides students from various graduate schools with the opportunity to work alongside each other in a competitive environment to solve real estate joint venture issues similar to those they may face after graduation. Prior to the competition, students received a hypothetical set of facts, an issues list, associated letter of intent provisions and background reading materials. During the competition, the students worked in four-person teams, each of which negotiated two separate real estate venture issues based on the information that had been provided to them. Holland & Knight attorneys acted as coaches for each of the teams. Three teams from UCLA and three teams from Cal participated in the competition at UCLA, and six teams from USC participated in the USC competition. At each event, half of the teams represented the investor (the financial partner), and half of the teams represented the sponsor (the operating partner).

USC Competition

The winners of the 2025 Real Estate Joint Venture Negotiating Competition at USC were as follows:

• First place went to Team F comprised of Rohith Asoju, Ayush Bajpai, Jonathan Moftakhar and Xochitl Buenabad.
• Second place went to Team B comprised of Drew Rafshol, Dillon Santoso, Minji Kang and Wyatt Dodd.
• Third place went to Team C comprised of Tenghuan Ge, Colin Lawrence, Devin Pacheco, and Sizhe Tu.

First Place Team with Coaches Andy Starrels, Ariel Robinson and Michael Scheinberg

Second Place Team with Moderator Alexis Alonzo and Coach Doug Merkel

Third Place Team with Coaches Doug Merkel and Andy Starrels

USC Judges Kirk Helgeson, Rory Ingels, Evan Kantor and Jachi Xiong with Moderator Alexis Alonzo and Coaches Ariel Robinson, Andy Starrels and Michael Scheinberg

A panel of distinguished industry professionals judged each team's performance: Kirk Helgeson, president and chief investment officer of American Realty Advisors; Rory Ingels, head of the U.S. Real Estate Equity Asset Team at Blackrock; Evan Kantor, head of the Commercial Investment Group at Kennedy Wilson; and Jachi Xiong, director of structured finance at Pacific Urban Investors.

UCLA/Cal Competition

The winners of the 2025 Real Estate Joint Venture Challenge at UCLA were as follows:

• First place went to Team F (Cal Team 1) comprised of Alec Carrier, Eric Miranda, Jacob Shofet and Jamile Simao.
• Second place went to Team C (UCLA Team 2) comprised of Joseph Moita, Elan Amona, Sandra Kim and Karina Wohlhieter.
• Third place went to Team A (UCLA Team 3) comprised of John Adams, Aaron Bencohen, Samuel Kohanteb and Juliet Walker.

First Place Team

Second Place Team

Third Place Team

UCLA/Cal Judges Val Kwong, Mark Karlan, Phil Nichols and Patti Sinclair watch as students negotiate

Hosts and Sponsors

The Holland & Knight team is grateful to and thanks:

• USC and UCLA for hosting the event
• The local school liaisons (USC Real Estate Law Society Co-President Niki Sahraian and UCLA Real Estate Law Association Co-Presidents Kylee Conway and Brandon Valafar) for organizing and following through with seemingly countless details
• The sponsors for their support for the UCLA/Cal program: the Lowell Milken Institute for Business Law and Policy (Michael Dorff, Executive Director), UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate (Peter Saephanh, Director of Student Programs) and Berkeley Center for Law and Business (Lenique Frazier, Program Coordinator).