National Animal Law Competitions - Law School - Lewis & Clark

13th Annual National Animal Law Competitions
February 19 - 21, 2016

Presented by the Center for Animal Law Studies in collaboration with the Animal Legal Defense Fund

Hosted by Harvard Law School’s Animal Law & Policy program

 

Congratulations to our 2016 National Animal Law Competitions winners!


Appellate Moot Court

1st place: Gabe Hinman & Nathan Haynes, Lewis & Clark Law School

2nd place: Brian Buske & Rachel Morris, Lewis & Clark Law School

Best Oral Advocate: Aleem Dhalla, University of Nevada Las Vegas William S. Boyd School of Law

Best Brief: Gabe Hinman & Nathan Haynes, Lewis & Clark Law School

Closing Argument

1st place: Marco Rodriguez, The John Marshall Law School

2nd place: Laura Delgado, Creighton University School of Law

Legislative Drafting & Lobbying

1st place: Katelin Shugart-Schmidt, The George Washington University Law School

2nd place: William Lowrey, Vermont Law School

Best Bill & Fact Sheet: Sarah Hanneken, The John Marshall Law School

 

Overview

NALC, is an inter-law school competition presented by the Center for Animal Law Studies at Lewis & Clark in collaboration with the Animal Legal Defense Fund. NALC provides law students from across the United States an opportunity to develop knowledge in the field of animal law while honing their written and oral advocacy skills. The event is comprised of three separate competitions:

  • Legislative Drafting & Lobbying Competition
  • Closing Argument Competition
  • Appellate Moot Court Competition
 

Registration

*It is highly recommended to read the competition rules in full before registering. To avoid confusion and potential registration problems, please be sure to internally coordinate how those competing from your law school will handle the registration process, including payment.

Registration Links

We used an online registration system this year. Payment could be made by check or credit card. All payments were charged an Eventbrite processing fee as well as credit card fees, if applicable. A full refund was available until December 11, 2015. We regret that no refunds were available after that date.

Registration should be completed by the individual competitor or by one team member on behalf of both in the case of the Appellate Moot Court Competition. Those submitting registration(s) on behalf of a team or individual competitor should enter the contact information of each competitor. In instances where specific competitor information is still unknown, an interim contact from the school must be entered as a place holder. Please note, the confirmation email will be sent to that email address.

Required information on the registration form includes:

  • Law School name & mailing address
  • Competitors’ names, year in school, email address, and phone number. (Both team members’ info is needed for the Appellate Moot Court Competition. For those schools that hold internal competitions or the like, registration may be completed without specific competitor info. This information, however, must be provided as soon as possible.)
  • Coaches’ names & email addresses

The competition was open to law students currently seeking a JD from any ABA-approved law school in the United States.  See competition rules for additional information.

Questions? Please contact Liberty Mulkani, lmulkani@aldf.org.

 

Problems

Appellate Moot Court Competition Problem (author - Delcianna Winders)

Team Briefs:

Closing Argument Competition Problem (author - Lora Dunn)

Legislative Drafting & Lobbying Competition Problem (author - Chris Green)

Score Sheets

Questions? Please contact Liberty Mulkani. Do not contact the problem authors directly with questions.

 

Rules

 

Schedule

Instead of paper programs, we used a digital event guide for the competitions once again this year. The guide included the schedule, maps, judge information and other important details.

For a PDF copy of the event schedule, please click here. Note: the schedule is subject to change. The following outline also provided key schedule elements:

All competition rounds on Saturday and Sunday as well as the Saturday results reception took place at Harvard Law School.

Friday, February 19, 2016

  • Meeting with Closing Argument and Legislative Drafting & Lobbying Competitors from 5:00-5:45 p.m. (coaches may attend).
  • Meeting with Appellate Moot Court Competitors from 5:45-6:30 p.m. (coaches may attend).
  • Judges’ Meeting and Reception from 7:00-9:00 p.m.

Saturday, February 20, 2016

  • Preliminary competition rounds at Harvard Law School from 8:45 a.m. – 4:35 p.m. (see event schedule for more details).
  • Results Reception at Harvard Law School from 5:00-7:00 p.m.

Sunday, February 21, 2016

  • Semi-final Appellate Moot Court Competition rounds at Harvard Law School from 8:30-9:50 a.m. 
  • Final competition rounds at Harvard Law School from 10:15 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
  • Awards ceremony at Harvard Law School from approximately 2:45-3:30 p.m.

 

Venue & Lodging

Venue

All competition rounds on Saturday and Sunday, February 20-21 took place in Wasserstein Hall at the Harvard Law School campus at 1563 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138. For directions and a map of the campus, click here.

The easiest pick-up location for taxis or reserved cars is the “Lewis Lot,” located at 1557 Massachusetts Avenue. This lot is located between Pound Hall and the Harvard-Epworth United Methodist Church, in front of the Lewis International Law Center building. Click here for a list of local taxi companies and their contact information.

 

Parking

For those driving to campus, parking passes should be purchased in advance as the lots tend to sell out early. You can reserve daily passes 2-weeks in advance online at this link and parking costs $7/day on evenings and weekends.

To purchase passes online, you will first need to register for an account. Choose the “visitor” option at the link above; this will take you to the registration page where you will select a username and password and enter your personal information, as requested. For “department” please choose “Harvard Law School” and use Department Code: 1006. After registering for your account, you will be emailed a confirmation link, which will bring you back to the login page where you will enter the username and password you’ve created.

The closest lots to the NALC event activities are the “SEAS” and “LITT” lots. Both are surface lots. For a detailed map of the parking lot locations, click here.

 

Lodging

We had a special rate of $199/night plus taxes arranged for NALC competitors and coaches at the Sheraton Commander Hotel. The Sheraton Commander is located at 16 Garden Street in Cambridge, just across Cambridge Common Park from Harvard Law School. To reserve a room at this rate, please visit this link or phone the hotel directly at: (617) 547-4800. You will need to request the “National Animal Law Competitions” group rate to receive the discounted price. Note: reservations must be made by January 29, 2016 in order to receive our group rate and are subject to availability.

Another lodging option was the Irving House at Harvard, a B&B located 10 minutes by foot from Harvard Law School (0.5 miles). The property, which consists of two converted 1890s family houses, has 44-guest rooms with a variety of styles to choose from. Rates range from $115-275/night, with some rooms accommodating up to 4 people (note: some rooms have shared restrooms). Rates include a hearty continental breakfast and afternoon snacks, complimentary WiFi and local calls, and cable TV. To reserve a room, please visit their website or phone the B&B at(617) 547-4600. You do not need to mention a group name to make a reservation; rooms are subject to availability.

Finally, we also recommend the DoubleTree Boston-Cambridge as an option. The DoubleTree is located just across the Charles River from Cambridge, and offers a free shuttle to Harvard Square at frequent intervals. Rates at the DoubleTree start at $159/night for a King Suite with an additional sofa bed ($151 for AAA members). Please contact the hotel directly at (617) 783-0900 to reserve a room; we do not have a group block set up at this hotel.

All reservations for NALC judges were handled by Liberty Mulkani via a rooming list. Judges, please contact Liberty with any questions.

 

Special Thanks

We would like to thank the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) for their incredible support of the National Animal Law Competitions. It is in large part the support of ALDF that makes the event possible year after year. We are grateful for our ongoing collaboration with ALDF and for the significant work individuals at ALDF put into the National Animal Law Competitions.

We would also like to thank Harvard Law School’s Animal Law & Policy Program as well as the Shared Earth Foundation for their generous support of NALC.