External Competitions

Current Competition Results

Moot Court
Tryouts for the Baylor Moot Court team are open to all students who have participated in at least one internal moot court competition. Notices of tryouts are posted periodically, generally in the fall and spring following the intraschool competitions. Students are selected for the Baylor Moot Court team, and then team members are assigned to individual competitions.

Mock Trial
The Baylor Mock Trial teams are generally selected in the fall and winter quarters. Students interested in trying out for the Baylor team should structure their schedule so that they complete a fall/winter Practice Court class or a spring/summer Practice Court class with at least one or two quarters left after Practice Court before graduation.

Second year students are eligible to be selected to work with certain mock trial teams. 2L tryouts generally take place in August and in December/January.

Client Counseling
Like the internal version of the Client Counseling competition, the Regional and National Client Counseling competitions gives students the opportunity to develop effective and efficient interviewing and counseling skills. Additionally, the students prepare for appropriate discussion of practical issues such as confidentiality, fee arrangements, engagement letters, conflicts of interest, professional and ethical conduct, general litigation procedures, and methods of alternative dispute resolution. In each round of the competition, teams of two students interview and counsel a "new client" with an undisclosed problem.

The faculty coach generally chooses the team for the external competition from the students who participate in the intraschool competition. The team consists of two to four members. Two members will be designated as the team members who will compete in the external competition. The other member or members will serve as the student coaches and assist with the preparation of the competition team.

The students are judged on their ability to establish a rapport with the client, ferret out the relevant facts from the client, identify potential non-legal and legal courses of action that are consistent with the client's objectives, effectively explain such options to the client, and answer questions and concerns of the client. The judges-all lawyers and counselors-give valuable feedback and advice to competitors.

Transactional Law Team
Members of the Baylor Transactional Law Team are chosen during the fall quarter through an application process. Students selected for the Baylor Transactional Law Team are assigned to teams for particular transactional law competitions, the subject matter and format of which varies. Some competitions are always focused on certain subject areas, such as sports law or healthcare law. Other transactional law competitions are not restricted to a particular area of law, and the competition problems are set in a variety of contexts, such as mergers and acquisitions, venture capital, or start up enterprises. The formats of these competitions vary as well, but the skills honed by student competitors include analytical, drafting, client counseling, and negotiating skills encountered in transactional problem solving—the very skills that transactional lawyers at a law firm or in-house legal department tackle on a daily basis.

Tryout Schedule

Please email Kathy_Serr@baylor.edu with any questions regarding upcoming tryouts.