91ÊÓƵ

Elisabeth Haub School of Law student speaking into a microphone in front of a class of students.
Advocacy Program

Trial Advocacy Competitions

Develop Your Skills as a Trial Lawyer

Haub Law’s Trial Advocacy Teams are consistently ranked among the top law school mock trial team nationwide. Student Trial Teams have the opportunity to hone their advocacy and develop their skills as trial lawyers, traveling across the country to represent the Law School in prestigious civil and criminal trial competitions such as those listed below. With support and guidance from alumni coaches and mentors, students learn how to prepare a case for trial, reviewing legal documents, witness statements, and physical evidence. In competition they argue motions, deliver opening statements, conduct direct and cross examinations, and deliver closing arguments.

  • During the Spring semester Haub Law hosts the 91ÊÓƵ Intramural Trial Competition. This intra-school competition culminates with a full trial presentation by the top four advocates. The preliminary rounds of the competition are judged by faculty, practitioners, and judges. The students are expected to present a pre-selected portion of a mock trial for review by the judges. Students scoring the highest points are invited to compete in the Final Rounds held in the early Fall.

  • Georgetown University Law Center sponsors the National White Collar Crime Mock Trial Invitational.

  • The Competition also provides the selection basis for participating on the 91ÊÓƵ Inter-school Trial Competition Teams. Fifteen to twenty student advocates will be selected from the student body to compete in the Inter-school Competition. Selected students will work with Faculty Coaches to prepare for Regional and National Competitions. 91ÊÓƵ sends students to ten nationally recognized competitions annually. In addition to these competitions, students compete in the following competitions related to client skills, such as mediation, arbitration, and client counseling.

  • The ABA Law Student Division's Negotiation Competition offers you a forum to develop the very skills you will use as a practitioner, and a chance to meet and network with fellow law students - future colleagues - from around the nation. Moreover, participation in a national competition will give you an opportunity to gain important resume-building experience and recognition.

  • The Client Counseling Competition was conceived and developed as a legal teaching technique by Professor Louis M. Brown of the University of Southern California Law Center. The purpose of the competition is to promote greater knowledge and interest among law students in the preventive law and counseling functions of law practice and to encourage students to develop interviewing, planning, and analytical skills in the lawyer-client relationship in the law office.

  • The National Trial Competition was established in 1975 to strengthen students’ advocacy skills. It is sponsored by the Texas Young Lawyers Association and American College of Trial Lawyers. Civil and criminal trial problems are alternated each year.

  • The Association of Trial Lawyers of America sponsors the National Student Trial Advocacy Competition in an effort to train and educate law students in trial advocacy. This National Competition features a civil mock trial.

  • The National Criminal Justice Trial Advocacy Competition is sponsored by the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section.

  • Georgetown University Law Center sponsors the National White Collar Crime Mock Trial Invitational. Twenty schools are invited to participate in the competition.