The First Annual National Moot Court Competition in the Area of Child Welfare and Adoption Law
March 10 & 11, 2006

March 1, 2006

Law students from across the United States will gather in Columbus, Ohio on Friday, March 10 and Saturday, March 11 to show off their advocacy skills as they present legal arguments regarding “Assisted Reproduction, Privacy, and Wrongful Adoption.” They will compete to be the champion of the nation’s first ever moot court competition in child welfare and adoption law.

Capital University Law School’s National Center for Adoption Law and Policy and its Moot Court Board have partnered with 4 other prominent child advocacy organizations to host the competition. Nineteen teams from throughout the country will argue before a final round of judges composed of leaders from:

• The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges,
• The ABA Center on Children and the Law,
• The American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, and
• The National Association of Counsel for Children

Ohio Supreme Court Justice Maureen O’Connor will preside over the final round.

The law schools participating are: The John Marshall Law School, Chicago, Illinois; Loyola University Chicago School of Law, Chicago, Illinois (sending 2 teams); The Northern Kentucky University – Salmon P. Chase College of Law, Highland Heights, Kentucky (sending 2 teams); Rutgers University School of Law (both Camden and Newark, New Jersey campuses); The Thomas M. Cooley Law School, Lansing, Michigan; Touro College - Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center, Huntington, New York; Tulane University Law School, New Orleans, Louisiana; St. John’s University School of Law, Jamaica, New York (sending 2 teams); University of Dayton School of Law, Dayton, Ohio; University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, Detroit, Michigan (sending 2 teams); University of Michigan Law School, Ann Arbor, Michigan; University of Missouri Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri; Widener University School of Law, Wilmington, Delaware; and, of course, Capital University Law School, Columbus, Ohio.

All preliminary rounds will be held in Ohio Senate and Ohio House Hearing Rooms at the Ohio Statehouse, on Friday March 10, from 8:30 am until 5:00 pm. The semi-final round will be on Saturday March 11, from 12:30 - 2:30 pm and the final round from 3:00 - 5:00 pm at the Supreme Court of Ohio, Ohio Judicial Center.

Attorneys, judges, and magistrates from all over the country have volunteered their time to judge the briefs that were filed by the teams, and to judge the oral arguments in Columbus, Ohio on March 10 and 11, 2006.