Yale Team Makes it to Quarterfinals in Jessup Moot Court

Earlier this month, a team of students from Yale Law School made it to the quarterfinals of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court competition, the world's largest moot court competition. Yale Law School was the only U.S. law school to make it to the quarterfinal stage of the international round, where they competed with teams from around the world. It was also the first time that Yale has had a team advance to the international rounds since 1980.

"The accomplishment of the law school team is pretty amazing," said Harold Hongju Koh, Sterling Professor of International Law. "This is a global competition with nearly a thousand teams participating worldwide. Yale Law School has no faculty coach (unlike all the other schools). The students are so dedicated that they wrote their memorials over Christmas vacation after taking their exams."

The team consisted of Srinath Reddy '19, Shikha Garg '19, Varun Char '19, Anirudh Sivaram '20, and Hong Tran '20. The coaches were Beatrice Walton '18 and Quirin Weinzierl '18 LLM. Asaf Lubin ’18 JSD served as an advisor. Garg was ranked among the Top 20 oralists at the international rounds. In addition, the team placed fourth overall in the Alona Evans Award, given to the team with the best combined memorials at the International Round.

In February, the team made it to the U.S. regional round held at the Denver Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver. The rounds consisted of 18 teams from around the country. Reddy, Garg, and Sivaram earned prizes for placing among the top five oralists overall. The team's brief submission earned fifth place.

"Competing in the Jessup competition has been the highlight of my year," said Sivaram. "From my experience, it is more than a moot court competition — it is an opportunity to immerse oneself in the major discussions and debates that dominate public international law today. I'm very thankful to everyone who supported us, especially our coaches and Professor Koh."

The Jessup competition includes participants from over 645 law schools in 95 countries. The competition is a simulation of a fictional dispute between countries before the International Court of Justice, the judicial organ of the United Nations. One team is allowed to participate from every eligible school. Teams prepare oral and written pleadings arguing both the applicant and respondent positions of the case.