Advocacy Competitions
- Nationally ranked as a top 10 moot court program
- Annually hosts 11 advocacy competitions each year - more than any other school on record
- Five current Supreme Court justices have presided over GW-exclusive competitions since 2012
- Active in all three of the major advocacy competition categories: moot court, mock trial, and alternative dispute resolution
Through GW’s advocacy programs, our students compete in both internal, national, and international competitions, and do so very successfully. Our three Skills Boards (moot court, mock trial, and alternative dispute resolution) combined for the following successes during the 2018-19 academic year:
- Sweet 16 - Two Teams
- Quarter-Finalists - Two Teams
- Semi-finalists - Two Teams
- Finalists (second place) - Five Teams
- Best Oral Advocate - Three Students
- Best Brief - Five Teams
- Regional Competition Champions - Two Teams
- Competition Champions (no regional round) - Two Teams
- National Competition Champion (beyond regional round) - One Team
All external teams competing off-campus against other schools are provided with a faculty coach. GW’s five most significant successes from the 2018-2019 academic year were:
- National Champion and Best Briefs at the Giles Rich Intellectual Property Moot Court Competition in Atlanta, GA and Washington, DC
- Champion and Best Oral Advocate at the Estrella Mock Trial Competition in San Juan, Puerto Rico
- Champions of the National Telecommunications and Technology Court Competition in Washington, DC
- Regional Champions in the Constance Baker Motley Mock Trial Regional Competition in Annapolis, MD
- Regional Champions in the ABA Law Student Division Regional Negotiation Competition in Arlington, VA.
GW’s own prestigious Van Vleck Constitutional Moot Court Competition--open exclusively to GW Law students--has brought five current Supreme Court justices to campus to preside over the finals since 2012. Most recently, Justice Sonia Sotomayor presided in 2014; Justice Samuel Alito and then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh presided in January 2016, and Chief Justice John Roberts is scheduled to return in 2020.