Trial Competition Performance Rankings

The Trial Competition Performance Ranking (TCPR) is an objective snapshot of achievement in interscholastic law school trial competitions.

Top 20 for 2016-2017

Fordham University School of Law
Brendan Moore Trial Advocacy Center
Trial Competition Performance Rankings
Top 20 for 2016-2017
1	Stetson	14 points
2	Fordham	13 points
	St. Johns	13 points
4	Chicago-Kent	12 points
5	Georgetown	11 points
6	Drexel/Kline	10 points
	UMKC
	Wake Forest
9	Campbell	8 points
	Loyola LA
	Tulane
	UC Davis
13	U of Florida	7 points
	Northwestern
	South Carolina
	South Texas
	Maryland
18	American	6 points
	Baylor
	Belmont
	Iowa

Special thanks to Professor Joe Lester and Faulkner Law School for compiling all competition results at trialteamcentral.org.

The TCPR recognizes success at these competitions as one indicator of an effective trial advocacy education. The TCPR is not a measurement of a law school’s overall trial advocacy program. The TCPR cannot measure breadth of offerings, quality of teaching, or most importantly, student learning. The unwavering goal of trial advocacy education should be to prepare law students to advocate and win trials on behalf of their clients while maintaining the highest professional and ethical standards. Achievement at competitions can be an attending (albeit fun) byproduct of that quality education for those school that choose to participate.

Methodology

All TCPR points are allocated based on the competition result data compiled by Faulkner Law School http://www.trialteamcentral.org/.

Point allocation for all single-tournament national competitions is as follows: 3 points for winning the competition, 2 points for making it to the final round, and 1 point for making it to the semi-final round. For exclusively regional tournaments (AAJ Regionals, TYLA Regionals, Chester Bedall), each winning team is allocated 3 points. No points are allocated for regional finalists or semi-finalists.

For AAJ Nationals and TYLA Nationals, where all participating teams won regional qualifiers, the points are allocated as follows: 4 points for winning the competition, 3 points for making it to the final round, and 2 points for making it to the semi-final round. Additional weight is not given to other “selective” national competitions because each competition employs their own unique rubric for school selection and do not share the unquestionable objectivity of a regional tournament qualifier.

For the 2016-2017 year, no points were allocated for the ABA Employment Regional or National Competitions because of the limited and inconsistent result data available.