Moot Court Teams

Penn State Dickinson's moot court teams excel in interscholastic competition. In recent years, our National Trial Team was a regional finalist; the ABA National Appellate Advocacy Competition Team was voted the Best Brief in the Nation; and the National Appellate Moot Court Team won the Mid-Atlantic Regional Competition.

Each year, the law school fields as many as ten interscholastic moot court teams. Members are typically selected through the Intraschool Competition in which candidates are required to submit written briefs and present oral arguments.

In addition to the competitions described below, Penn State Dickinson has entered teams in the National Criminal Justice Trial Competition, the Tournament of Champions Trial Competition, the ABA Regional Client Counseling Competition, and seven other competitions involving appeals, client counseling and mediation.

Jessup International Law Moot Court Team
Interested second- and third-year students compete for four positions on the Jessup International Law Moot Court Team. Under the direction of a faculty advisor and a student coach, the team tackles a problem drafted by two internationally recognized scholars in international law.

National Appellate Moot Court Team
Every year, six students are selected to represent Penn State Dickinson on our National Appellate Moot Court Teams. We are currently participating in the National Appellate Advocacy Competition sponsored by the American Bar Association's Law Student Division. The competition involves questions of federal law currently in dispute and presents an excellent opportunity for participants to produce a highly professional brief and oral argument, as well as to interact with students from other law schools on a professional and personal basis.

Students are chosen to participate on the basis of a writing sample and a practice oral argument based upon the previous year's problem. Preference is given to rising third-year students over rising second-year students.

Association of Trial Lawyers of America, Gourley and National Trial Competition Teams
From the Intraschool Competition, the law school selects five teams of third-year students to represent it in the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, Gourley and National Trial Competitions. These trial teams prepare for the competitions by analyzing and repeatedly trying the cases under the supervision of advisors, who are full-time faculty or practicing attorneys. Currently, six students are selected for the National Trial Competition teams, eight students are selected for the ATLA Trial Competition teams, and two students are selected for the Gourley Trial Competition team.

The Irving R. Kaufman Memorial Securities Law Team
Third-year students are given the opportunity to compete in the Irving R. Kaufman Memorial Securities Competition, which is held at Fordham University School of Law in New York City. Approximately thirty schools from across the nation enter the competition, which focuses on issues relating to federal securities law. Securities Regulation is recommended for participants.

The Wagner Labor Law Team
The Robert F. Wagner National Labor & Employment Law Moot Court Competition, which is held in New York City in mid-March, focuses on labor and employment law.

Each spring, the New York Law School Moot Court Association administers the Robert F. Wagner National Labor and Employment Law Moot Court Competition, and for thirty years, as many as fifty schools from across the country have competed in this prestigious event. The Moot Court Association sponsors this competition in honor of the late U.S. Senator Robert F. Wagner, an alumnus of New York Law School and the author of the National Labor Relations Act.

The Wagner Competition is the nation’s largest student-run moot court competition and the only national competition dedicated exclusively to the areas of labor and employment law. Completion of, or enrollment in, our Employment and Labor Law course or work experience in this area is recommended, but not required.

Information about the Wagner Moot Court Competition, including rules and video of the prior year’s competition, may be found at http://www.nyls.edu/pages/315.asp.

The Annual Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot
The Vis Competition was founded fourteen years ago with the goal “to foster the study of international commercial law and arbitration for resolution of international business disputes through its application to a concrete problem of a client and to train law leaders of tomorrow in methods of alternative dispute resolution.” The students on the Vis team are responsible for writing memorandums for claimant and respondent and then presenting those arguments in oral hearings against opposing teams to be settled by international arbitrators. The competition requires determining questions of contracts from a transaction relating to the sale or purchase of goods under the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) and other uniform international commercial law and then presenting arguments in an arbitral proceeding under specified arbitration rules.

The competition is held annually at the Juridicum located in Vienna, Austria and has over 150 participating law schools from across the world. The problem is issued in October and the oral arguments are held in March of the following year.