Campbell Law ranks fifth in national trial competition performance

RALEIGH — Campbell Law School ranked fifth in Fordham University School of Law’s Trial Competition Performance Ranking (TCPR) for the 2018-19 academic year. Campbell Law is the only North Carolina law school to make the list’s Top 25.

Campbell Law is tied for 5^th with the University of Arkon’s law school with 12 points. Since Fall 2016, Campbell Law ranks sixth among the top advocacy programs — tied with Baylor, Cumberland and Loyola Chicago law schools with 25 points each.

The TCPR is an objective snapshot of achievement in interscholastic law school trial competitions, according to Fordham’s Brendan Moore Trial Advocacy Center.

Performance Rankings Top 25

Professor Joe Lester and Faulkner Law School compiled all the competition results at trialteamcentral.org.

According to the Fordham website, 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.

Learn more at https://www.fordham.edu/info/27179/trial_competition_performance_rankings

Over the past six years Campbell Law student advocates have amassed one international championship, nine national championships, five national runners-up, nine national semifinalists, seven regional championships and 17 national individual best advocate awards.

This unprecedented success is attributable to a number of recent developments, according to Professor Dan Tilly, who also serves as the law school’s director of advocacy.

The first is cultivating experienced coaches, he explained. The second is identifying and grooming the school’s top advocates.

“Our success has everything to do with building momentum,” Tilly said. “Former champions are now champion coaches and outstanding advocates are getting more opportunities than ever before to demonstrate their skills.”

preLaw Magazine once again ranked Campbell Law among its Top Law Schools for Trial Advocacy in its Spring 2019 issue.

ABOUT CAMPBELL LAW

Since its founding in 1976, Campbell Law has developed lawyers who possess moral conviction, social compassion, and professional competence, and who view the law as a calling to serve others. Among its accolades, the school has been recognized by the American Bar Association (ABA) as having the nation’s top Professionalism Program and by the American Academy of Trial Lawyers for having the nation’s best Trial Advocacy Program. Campbell Law boasts more than 4,200 alumni, who make their home in nearly all 50 states and beyond. In 2019, Campbell Law will celebrate 40 years of graduating legal leaders and 10 years of being located in a state-of-the-art facility in the heart of North Carolina’s Capital City.