March 13, 2008
The Mississippi College School of Law overcame a tough challenge
from the Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law to win
the 16th
Annual Chief Judge Conrad B. Duberstein Bankruptcy Moot Court
Competition. Forty-four teams from law schools around the
country competed in New York from March 8-10 at the nation’s only
moot court competition devoted entirely to
bankruptcy. Mississippi’s win this year follows its strong
second place finish in last year’s competition, where Brooklyn Law
School placed first.
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The competition is sponsored by the St. John’s University School
of Law and the American Bankruptcy Institute and is named for
distinguished St. John’s alumnus and former ABI Director, Chief
Judge Conrad B. Duberstein, who passed away in 2005 at the age of
90.
The ABI Endowment Fund provided the first place team with $5,000
and the second place team with a $3,000 prize. The University
of Houston Law Center and a second team from the Mississippi
College School of Law each received $1,500 for their third place
tie. The Emory University School of Law won $1,000 for the
Best Brief. Megan C. Connor, a student at the University of
Miami School of Law, won the $1,000 Best Oral Advocate award.
Nearly 200 lawyers and judges helped judge the event, which
included eight rounds of arguments. In addition to New York
area Bankruptcy Judges, the ABI brought in a dozen Bankruptcy
Judges from around the nation to judge the advanced rounds.
The final round was held at the Brooklyn Bankruptcy Courthouse
in the Duberstein Courtroom, named after Judge Duberstein.
The final round was judged by a panel of distinguished federal
jurists that included: Hon. Mary M. Schroeder, Chief Judge of the
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals; Hon. Marjorie O. Rendell, Third
Circuit Court of Appeals; Hon. Jeffrey S. Sutton, Sixth Circuit
Court of Appeals; Hon. Stuart M. Bernstein, Chief Judge of the U.S.
Bankruptcy Court, S.D.N.Y.; and Hon. Carla E. Craig, Chief Judge of
the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, E.D.N.Y.
Each year, the competition problem focuses on two sophisticated
cutting edge issues of bankruptcy law. Past competitions
addressed environmental clean up costs, channeling injunctions in
mass tort cases, state sovereign immunity, the constitutionality of
the bankruptcy courts, religious entity bankruptcies, and the
constitutionality of speech restrictions imposed on consumer
bankruptcy attorneys, to name just a few of the problem
topics.
This year’s problem again raises two timely unresolved issues of
bankruptcy law: (1) whether class-skipping gifts are permissible in
Chapter 11 plans, and (2) whether a provision of an inter-creditor
agreement authorizing a senior creditor to vote the claim of a
junior creditor is enforceable. The fact pattern can be
accessed at www.stjohns.edu/law/bankrutpcy or
http://www.abiworld.org/moot/index.html.
The judges, lawyers and students agreed that the fact pattern
and quality of competitors was outstanding. Many of the teams
were sponsored or coached by bankruptcy bar associations or local
law firms.
“This is a wonderful educational event that exposes young law
students to the complexity and excitement of bankruptcy law and
pushes them to a level of excellence they did not realize they
could achieve,” said Professor G. Ray
Warner, Director of the LL.M. in Bankruptcy Program at St.
John’s and a faculty advisor to the competition. “In
addition, the competition helps advance the development of
bankruptcy law by giving the judges an outstanding presentation of
issues that they will soon see in their own courts.”
The event culminated with the gala awards banquet at Pier 60,
Chelsea Piers. More than 800 persons, including many of the leading
New York bankruptcy judges and practitioners, attended the
event.