The ‘World Cup of Law’ returns to Vienna next spring

The Charleston School of Law has announced that it will be participating in the 30th annual Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot competition in Vienna.

The 2022-23 Charleston School of Law Moot Court team and its volunteer coaches have begun preparing legal memoranda and oral presentations for the upcoming competition scheduled for April 1-6, 2023.

“It’s like the World Cup … for law,” said international law attorney Chris Campbell in a recent story published the South Carolina Bar.

Campbell, attorney Brent Clinkscale, attorney Micah Chettah and The Honorable Kristi Harrington are the volunteer coaching staff for both the Charleston School of Law and University of South Carolina School of Law teams for the competition.

“As chair of the South Carolina Bar International Law Committee, I think it is amazing that we can help facilitate students from our law schools to engage and compete against students all over the world,” Clinkscale told the SC Bar. “South Carolina has a place in this conversation and deserves a seat at the international table.”

“I am thrilled that our students have an opportunity to argue on the world stage,” said Charleston Law Provost and Dean Larry Cunningham. “This is a great opportunity for students to sharpen their skills.”

The Charleston Law team consists of seven students, with four oralists and three brief writers. The four oralists and one coach with travel to Vienna in April for the oral argument portion of the competition.

The 2022-23 Charleston School of Law Vis competitors are Jenna DePoy (Chief Justice of the Moot Court Board), Morgan Murphy (Associate Justice of External Competitions), Jordan Oballe (3L), Belle Scott (2L), Ally Carswell (2L), Jessica Spadel (2L and final four competitor) and Corey James (2L).

More than 300 teams participated in last year’s competition. The event has not been held in-person since 2019, due to COVID-19 restrictions.

The Vis Moot was created to “foster the study of international commercial law and arbitration and provide a practical training to students for resolving international business disputes.”

There are two crucial phases in the Vis Moot to train advocacy skills: the writing of memoranda for claimant and respondent and the presentation of arguments in oral hearings held before arbitration practitioners and academics. The forensic and written exercises require determining questions of contract — flowing from a transaction relating to the sale or purchase of goods under the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods and other uniform international commercial law.

The dispute is resolved in the context of an arbitration under specified Arbitration Rules. In the pairings of teams for each general round, every effort is made to have civil law schools argue against common law schools — so each may learn from approaches taken by persons trained in another legal culture. Similarly, the teams of arbitrators judging each round are from both common law and civil law backgrounds.

CHARLESTON SCHOOL OF LAW QUICK FACTS

The Charleston School of Law is an ABA-accredited law school nationally recognized for its student-centric culture. Our faculty and staff are committed to preparing you for success both in the classroom and in the legal profession.

  • The Princeton Review ranks Charleston School of Law professors sixth in the country for faculty accessibility and No. 12 nationwide in quality of teaching (2022)
  • Charleston School of Law faculty ranked among the top of The Princeton Review’s list of Best Professors in the nation (2016-2018)
  • Experiential Learning: Charleston School of Law students have access to more than 150 externship sites, creating opportunities for experiential learning in the legal field.
  • Community Service: Charleston School of Law students have performed more than 241,000 community service hours (2004-current).
  • Students have won the National Tax Moot Court Championship for seven consecutive years (2012-2018)

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