Moot Court: ABA Tax Competition

During the Fall semester, students may earn one (1) unit of ungraded academic credit for participating on a two-student team in the written work portion of the ABA Law Student Tax Challenge (LSTC).

In order to receive academic credit for the written work portion of the competition, each member of the team must independently produce his or her own version of the required work products, and submit them to the instructor. Thereafter, the two team members will collaborate to produce a single set of products for submission to the ABA competition.

Teams that do not desire academic credit for the written work portion of the competition need not produce individual versions of the required documents. Such teams may participate in the competition but should not register for the Fall course.

The LSTC is a national tax planning and client counseling competition designed to more closely reflect everyday tax practice than do traditional moot court competitions. It is intended to provide law students with opportunities to research “real-life” tax planning issues and demonstrate their acquired tax knowledge through their writing skills. The LSTC is one of the largest tax competitions for law students in the United States.

Student participants at Lewis & Clark must comply with all of the rules of the LSTC, which typically require, among other things, that each team produce a memorandum and client correspondence on the tax consequences of a complex business planning problem. The problem will be released by the ABA Taxation Section late in the Summer, and the deadline for submitting the final paper to the Section is usually in November.

Each participant is responsible for locating and retaining his or her teammate for the competition. At the beginning of the term, students must attend several training sessions on techniques of federal tax research. Meeting times will be arranged among the instructor and participants.

The written work will not satisfy any of the Law School’s writing requirements. Successful participation in the Fall program for academic credit will count for one (1) unit of credit toward the Certificate in Federal Tax Law.

Prerequisite: The competition is open to all students who have previously completed Income Tax I.

Skills: analysis, counseling

Updated April 6, 2015