Stu­dent Activities

The Hen­ry M. Camp­bell Moot Court Com­pe­ti­tion has been an annu­al event at the Law School for more than 90 years. Win­ning it is one of the high­est hon­ors a Michi­gan law stu­dent can achieve.

The Camp­bell Com­pe­ti­tion, open to all inter­est­ed sec­ond- and third-year JD stu­dents is a test of the contestant’s skills in the art of appel­late advo­ca­cy, both oral and written.

Each year, the stu­dents who serve on the Camp­bell Board con­struct a hypo­thet­i­cal case which involves a top­ic of cur­rent social con­cern and rais­es dif­fi­cult unre­solved legal ques­tions. The record of this case is dis­trib­uted to poten­tial com­peti­tors ear­ly in the fall semester.

Par­tic­i­pants sub­mit writ­ten briefs on the issues of the case and then take part in oral argu­ments in the pre­lim­i­nary round late in the fall term.

Stu­dents work in pairs to com­plete their briefs, but par­tic­i­pate indi­vid­u­al­ly in oral argu­ments. Eval­u­a­tion is based upon both oral and writ­ten performance.

The quar­ter-final round is held ear­ly in the win­ter term, and a semi-final round is held in the mid­dle of the win­ter term.

The top two com­peti­tors advance to the final round, typ­i­cal­ly held in late March or ear­ly April. The pan­el of judges for the final argu­ment includes mem­bers of the Fed­er­al Bench. All com­peti­tors learn a tremen­dous amount of sub­stan­tive law while devel­op­ing writ­ten and oral advo­ca­cy skills. 

The Dimond Prize is award­ed each year for the best schol­ar­ly work in civ­il rights, con­sti­tu­tion­al law, or judi­cial review.

Michi­gan Law stu­dents, grad­u­ate stu­dents, and junior fac­ul­ty are eli­gi­ble to sub­mit papers, essays, arti­cles, the­ses, or books for award consideration.

Sub­mis­sions are due to the Office of Stu­dent Life in mid-May, a fac­ul­ty com­mit­tee reviews sub­mis­sions through­out the sum­mer, and the Office of Stu­dent Life typ­i­cal­ly announces the prize win­ner by the end of July.

The win­ning paper is award­ed a cash prize.

The Dimond Prize award is made avail­able through the gen­eros­i­ty of Paul R. Dimond, ​’69.

The Kou­ba Prize is award­ed each year to out­stand­ing stu­dent papers writ­ten on Euro­pean Union Law or Euro­pean Inte­gra­tion (“EU Law”), and out­stand­ing papers on a top­ic of pub­lic inter­na­tion­al law relat­ing to the peace and secu­ri­ty among nations (“Inter­na­tion­al Peace and Security”).

All cur­rent Michi­gan Law JD and LLM stu­dents are eli­gi­ble to sub­mit papers for award consideration.

Sub­mis­sions are due to the Office of Stu­dent Life in mid-May, a fac­ul­ty com­mit­tee reviews sub­mis­sions through­out the sum­mer, and the Office of Stu­dent Life typ­i­cal­ly announces prize win­ners by the end of July.

Win­ning papers are award­ed a cash prize.

The Kou­ba Prize awards are made avail­able through the gen­eros­i­ty of Jon Hen­ry Kouba, ​’65.

The Enter­tain­ment Media and Arts Law Stu­dents Asso­ci­a­tion (EMAL­SA) facil­i­tates a vari­ety of pro­fes­sion­al, aca­d­e­m­ic, and recre­ation­al activities.

Mem­bers have suc­cess­ful­ly com­pet­ed in pres­ti­gious nation­al com­pe­ti­tions, such as the Car­do­zo BMI Enter­tain­ment and Media Law Moot Court Com­pe­ti­tion and the Record­ing Academy’s Enter­tain­ment Law Ini­tia­tive nation­al writ­ing competition.

EMAL­SA mem­ber­ship is open to the entire Law School community.

The Envi­ron­men­tal Law Soci­ety (ELS) is a char­ter mem­ber of the Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Envi­ron­men­tal Law Soci­eties, con­sist­ing of a group of stu­dents and fac­ul­ty advi­sors ded­i­cat­ed to learn­ing about envi­ron­men­tal law and pro­tect­ing the envi­ron­ment through the legal process. In addi­tion to var­i­ous envi­ron­men­tal projects, ELS mem­bers also com­pete at the Annu­al Envi­ron­men­tal Moot Court Com­pe­ti­tion host­ed by Pace Law School in White Plains, New York.

In the past, the Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Stu­dent Asso­ci­a­tion (IPSA) has offered four moot court com­pe­ti­tions for Michi­gan Law stu­dents to par­tic­i­pate in:

• The Giles S. Rich Memo­r­i­al Patent Lit­i­ga­tion Moot Court Competition
• USP­TO​’s Inter­na­tion­al Patent Draft­ing Competition 
• The Saul Lefkowitz Trade­mark Moot Court Competition 
• The BMI Copy­right Moot Court Competition

Across these four moot courts, IPSA offers com­pe­ti­tion expe­ri­ences in each branch of intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty law: patents, trade­marks, and copyright.

Each com­pe­ti­tion offers stu­dents to devel­op legal writ­ing and oral advo­ca­cy skills with­in the IP law field.

Any stu­dent inter­est­ed in any branch of intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty can apply to par­tic­i­pate, includ­ing 1Ls. 

The Philip C. Jes­sup Inter­na­tion­al Law Moot Court Com­pe­ti­tion is an inter­na­tion­al moot court com­pe­ti­tion between law schools in more than 100 countries.

Each school fields a five-mem­ber team which com­petes in writ­ten and oral advo­ca­cy on a pub­lic inter­na­tion­al law top­ic. Michigan’s team is cho­sen by a try­out process, orga­nized by the Michi­gan Inter­na­tion­al Law Moot Court Asso­ci­a­tion (MILM­CA), at the begin­ning of each school year.

The com­pe­ti­tion is open to all law stu­dents. The five-mem­ber team trav­els first to the Region­al Round and then (hope­ful­ly) on to the finals, which are held each spring in Wash­ing­ton, DC.

The Michi­gan Law team has his­tor­i­cal­ly done very well in com­pe­ti­tions, win­ning the Unit­ed States Com­pe­ti­tion in 1998 and rou­tine­ly plac­ing in both the writ­ten and oral com­po­nents of the competition.

The Man­fred Lachs Space Law Moot Court Com­pe­ti­tion is a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty for stu­dents to con­front mod­ern prob­lems in space law on an inter­na­tion­al level.

Stu­dents com­pete in teams of three to write memo­ri­als and present oral argu­ments first at the North Amer­i­can pre­lim­i­nary round in Wash­ing­ton, DC, and, if suc­cess­ful there, at the final round, which is held in a dif­fer­ent city around the globe each year.

North Amer­i­can com­pe­ti­tion rounds are judged by expe­ri­enced attor­neys in the field of space law, hail­ing both from gov­ern­ment enti­ties, such as NASA and the U.S. Army, as well as from pri­vate practice.

The final round is pre­sent­ed in front of judges from the Inter­na­tion­al Court of Justice.

The com­pe­ti­tion is open to all stu­dents at the Law School.

The Native Amer­i­can Law Stu­dents Asso­ci­a­tion (NAL­SA) strives to increase com­mu­ni­ca­tion among Native Amer­i­can law stu­dents, Native Amer­i­can lawyers and the gen­er­al public.

In sup­port of this goal, NAL­SA pro­vides a forum at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan for the dis­cus­sion and explo­ration of fed­er­al Indi­an law, trib­al law, and press­ing legal issues affect­ing Native Americans.

NAL­SA serves as an infor­ma­tion source for Native Amer­i­can law stu­dents on edu­ca­tion­al finan­cial assis­tance, edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties, and employ­ment opportunities.

In past years, mem­bers have suc­cess­ful­ly com­pet­ed in the annu­al Nation­al NAL­SA Moot Court Com­pe­ti­tion and Writ­ing Competition.

NAL­SA mem­ber­ship is open to the entire Law School com­mu­ni­ty. Non-native mem­ber­ship is wel­comed and encouraged.

The Tri­al Advo­ca­cy Soci­ety — infor­mal­ly known as the mock tri­al team — is a select group of stu­dents who com­pete against oth­er law school mock tri­al teams at region­al and nation­al tour­na­ments through­out the aca­d­e­m­ic year. 

In 2023, the team was named a region­al cham­pi­on and a nation­al quar­ter­fi­nal­ist at the AAJ Stu­dent Tri­al Advo­ca­cy Competition. 

In the past few years, stu­dents have attend­ed com­pe­ti­tions held in New York, Hous­ton, Wash­ing­ton DC, New Orleans, Cleve­land, and Detroit. While some mem­bers of the team par­tic­i­pat­ed in mock tri­al as an under­grad­u­ate, many com­peti­tors have no pri­or experience.

Michi­gan Tri­al Academy

To ensure that all stu­dents at Michi­gan Law have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn valu­able tri­al advo­ca­cy skills, the mock tri­al team is host­ing the inau­gur­al Michi­gan Tri­al Acad­e­my in Fall 2023. The pro­gram offers an immer­sive and hands-on intro­duc­tion to tri­al advo­ca­cy for new and return­ing stu­dents, and no pri­or tri­al advo­ca­cy expe­ri­ence is required or expect­ed. For begin­ners, the pro­gram will cov­er the basics of con­duct­ing a tri­al; for mock tri­al vet­er­ans, the pro­gram offers an oppor­tu­ni­ty to expe­ri­ence the law school com­pe­ti­tion for­mat. In any case, tri­al advo­ca­cy devel­ops skills that are valu­able to every lawyer: orga­niz­ing evi­dence, sim­pli­fy­ing com­plex legal top­ics, and adapt­ing to an opponent’s arguments.

The Tri­al Acad­e­my con­sists of two train­ing ses­sions per week dur­ing the Fall semes­ter. The top­ics cov­ered include (but are not lim­it­ed to) open­ing state­ments, direct exam­i­na­tions, cross exam­i­na­tions, clos­ing argu­ments, and the rules of evi­dence. Many weeks will fea­ture a guest lec­ture from Michi­gan Law pro­fes­sors. At the end of the semes­ter, par­tic­i­pants will com­pete in mock tri­als against oth­er Tri­al Acad­e­my students. 

In the Win­ter semes­ter, a select num­ber of stu­dents from the pro­gram will be asked to rep­re­sent the law school at nation­al mock tri­al tour­na­ments across the country. 

Mem­ber­ship in the Tri­al Advo­ca­cy Soci­ety is open to the entire Law School community. 

If you have any ques­tions about the mock tri­al team, please email trialadvocacyboard@​umich.​edu.

If you have any ques­tions about the Tri­al Acad­e­my, please email trialacademy@​umich.​edu.

The Willem C. Vis Inter­na­tion­al Com­mer­cial Arbi­tra­tion Moot Court is a com­pe­ti­tion that fos­ters the study and prac­tice of inter­na­tion­al arbi­tra­tion. Stu­dents from more than 80 coun­tries com­pete in writ­ten and oral advo­ca­cy on a dis­pute aris­ing out of a con­tract of sale between par­ties from fic­tion­al sig­na­to­ries to the Unit­ed Nations Con­ven­tion on the Inter­na­tion­al Sale of Goods.

Michigan’s team has com­pet­ed every year since 2018. The team writes and sub­mits briefs or memo­ri­als in sup­port of both the claimant’s and respondent’s positions.

In the spring, a por­tion of the team trav­els to Vien­na, Aus­tria — along with teams from over 370 schools around the world — to com­pete in the oral argu­ment por­tion of the competition.

The Michi­gan Law team has also reg­u­lar­ly been select­ed to par­tic­i­pate in pre-moot com­pe­ti­tions, includ­ing com­pe­ti­tions host­ed by the U.S. Depart­ment of Com­merce, the Ford­ham School of Law in New York City, and the Loy­ola Uni­ver­si­ty School of Law in Chica­go, Illinois.