RALEIGH – Campbell Law School will host a Vis Pre-Moot Competition on Feb. 20-21. The in-person competition is part of the 33rd Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot.
In addition to a Vis team from the University of Bucharest and Campbell Law, competitors from Charleston Law School and the University of South Carolina will also participate, explained Professor Raluca Papadima, who is organizing the event and coaches the Campbell Law Vis team along with Nicholas Wilkins ‘26.
The two-day competition, which is sponsored by Hutchens Law and Ricci Law firms, will include a networking reception and three rounds of oral argument, which will require students to be able to switch on a moment’s notice from representing one of the parties to representing the other party. Professor Emeritus Scott Pryor will be among the judges for the competition along with a number of alumni including the law school’s Board of Visitors Chair John McCabe ’94 and Scott Flowers ’03.
There will be cash awards for the winning teams. First place will receive $1,000; second place will receive $500; third place will receive $300 and there will be $100 awards for the best male and female individual oralists.
The Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot is a competition for law students to foster the study and practice of international commercial sales law and arbitration. Students from 80 countries participated in the 32nd Vis Moot. The Vis Moot involves a dispute arising out of a contract of sale between two companies from member countries to the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. The contract provides that any dispute that might arise is to be settled by arbitration in a country that has enacted the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration and is a party to the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards. The arbitral rules to be applied rotate yearly among the arbitration rules of co-sponsoring institutions of the Moot. For the 33rd Vis Moot, the arbitration rules of the Singapore International Arbitration Center are applicable.
The purpose of the Vis Moot is to foster the study of international commercial law and arbitration and provide practical training for resolving international business disputes. There are two crucial phases in the Vis Moot to train advocacy skills: the writing of memoranda and the presentation of arguments in oral hearings held before arbitration practitioners and academics.
In the pairings of teams for each general round, every effort is made to have civil law schools argue against common law schools, so each may learn from approaches taken by persons trained in another legal culture. Similarly, the arbitrators judging the rounds come from both common law and civil law backgrounds.
Campbell Law advocates recently advanced to the semi-finals in the John B. Tieder Jr. Vis Pre-Moot Competition organized by Watt, Tieder, Hoffar and Fitzgerald LLP in conjunction with the George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School Moot Court Board (MCB). “After the general rounds going up against Georgetown University and Harvard University, we advanced to the semi-finals,” Papadima explained.
ABOUT CAMPBELL LAW SCHOOL
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 5,000 alumni, who make their home in nearly all 50 states and beyond. In 2026, Campbell Law is celebrating 50 years of graduating legal leaders and 17 years of being located in a state-of-the-art facility in the heart of North Carolina’s Capital City.