2016 National NALSA Moot Court Competition will be hosted by the Native American Law Students Association (NALSA) at Michigan State University College of Law, March 5th and 6th in East Lansing, MI. We are expecting over 60 teams from law schools across the United States to take part in this year’s competition. In order to ensure a successful competition for all those competing, we are kindly requesting your assistance.

Brief Judges:
The moot court rules require that briefs be scored anonymously by a panel of three judges. We are trying to get enough volunteers so that each panel will need to judge only four briefs (each of the three judges on a panel will receive and score the same four briefs). Briefs are due on January 18, 2016 and we hope to advance these briefs to judges no later than one week from the due date. We will send each judge a copy of the briefs, a score sheet, and a copy of the bench brief, which contains a guide to the issue and arguments. Judges must return the completed score sheets by no later than March 1st.
Team coaches are ineligible from participating as brief judges. Furthermore, brief judges are exempt from judging any team’s practice rounds or otherwise discussing the problem with participants, team faculty advisors, coaches, or other persons directly associated with preparing teams for competition.

Oral Argument Judges:
We will have a total of four sets of preliminary rounds on Saturday, March 5th. These rounds include two in the morning and two in the afternoon. We will also have several elimination rounds on Sunday, March 6th. We will hold an orientation session on Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday morning, and will also provide score sheets as well as a bench brief, clearly outlining the issues and arguments. The competition rules require that judges must fulfill one of the following:
(1) passed a federal, state, and/or tribal bar exam, and is a current member of a bar in good standing;
(2) currently a sitting judge or served as a judge for at least 2 of the previous 5 years;
(3) law school graduate currently clerking for a tribal, state, or federal judge; or
(4) fulltime law professor.

If interested in judging, click here to complete registration form.

For full announcement and description, click here.

For more information or if you have questions, contact nnalsa.vicepresident@gmail.com