2009 Tulane Law School Moot Court Mardi Gras Invitational Sports Law Competition

Last week, Tulane Law School hosted the 2009 Tulane Law School Moot Court Mardi Gras Invitational Sports Law Competition. This year’s problem was based on hybrid of the single entity issue raised in the American Needle case and the release issue raised in the MSG-NHL case .

I want to take this opportunity to thank the students at Tulane Law School—in particular Susan Jaffer, Paul Lund, Demelza Baer, and Taryn Brown—for all of their hard work in putting this event together. I also want to thank our “celebrity” guest judges for joining me on the panel to judge the finals of the competition. The guest judges were: Don Fehr, Executive Director of the Major League Baseball Players Association; Gary Roberts, Dean and Gerald L. Bepko Professor of Law Indiana University School of Law – Indianapolis; and Richard House, General Counsel of the New Orleans Hornets. And, of course, thanks to the students from the 37 different law schools from around the country for competing in this year’s event. All of the judges were impressed with the quality of the teams from the first round through the finals. I hope you enjoyed the competition and were able to find some time to take advantage of all that New Orleans has to offer (well, maybe not all of it) during Mardi Gras.

Finally, congratulations to the winners of this year’s competition. As always, the winning brief will be published in The Sports Lawyers Journal. Here are the results:

The winner of the 2009 Competition was: William & Mary Law School.

Semi-Finalists were: William & Mary Law School, Western State University Law School (second place), University of Virginia and Capital University.

The best brief was submitted by: Florida Coastal School of Law.

The top 5 Oralists were: 1) Sarah Grimm (Ohio State University Moritz School of Law), 2) Arpan Sura (William & Mary), 3) Mathew Spriggs (Ohio State University Moritz School of Law), 4) John J. O'Kane (William & Mary) and 5) Adam Milasincie (University of Virginia School of Law).

Here are the schools that competed in this year’s competition.
1) Florida Coastal School of Law Team
2) University of Detroit Mercy School of Law
3) Indiana University School of Law
4) University of Connecticut School of Law
5) UC Hastings College of Law
6) Florida State College of Law
7) Drexel University Earl Mack School of law
8) University of North Dakota School of Law
9) Charlotte School of Law
10) Western State University College of Law (Second Place)
11) Brooklyn Law School
12) The George Washington School of Law
13) Marquette University Law School
14) Capital University Law School
15) William & Mary Law School (Winner)
16) Temple Law School
17) Cornell University Law School
18) Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
19) Nova Southeastern University Law Center
20) Loyola University New Orleans College of Law
21) West Virginia University College of Law
22) Wayne State University Law School
23) Howard University School of Law
24) University of Maryland School of Law
25) Harvard Law School
26) DePaul University College of Law
27) Wake Forest University School of Law
28) University of Wisconsin School of Law
39) Thomas Jefferson School of Law
30) University of North Carolina School of Law
31) Emory University School of Law
32) Ohio State University Moritz School of Law
33) University of Michigan Law School
34) Villanova School of Law
35) University of Virginia School of Law
36) The John Marshall School of Law
37) The University of Toledo College of Law