About the Competition | Columbia Law School

About the Harlan Fiske Stone Moot Court Final Arguments

The Harlan Fiske Stone Moot Court final arguments, part of the Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison Moot Court Program, are the culmination of a three-round elimination competition in appellate advocacy.

This year, 47 students entered the competition. In the qualifying round, held during the fall semester, students briefed one of two issues on behalf of either the appellant or the appellee and presented their positions in oral arguments before panels composed of alumni practitioners and professors.

On the strength of their brief and oral argument scores, 20 competitors advanced to the spring semifinal rounds. There, they again briefed and argued a side of the same case. On April 7th, the two students with the highest scores on each of the two issues in the spring competition present their final arguments to a distinguished panel of judges. These judges will then award the Lawrence S. Greenbaum Prize for the best oral presentation in the final round. Professor Philip M. Genty and this year's Harlan Fiske Stone Moot Court Co-directors, Sydney Egnasko ’16 and Sarah Mac Dougall ’16, will recognize the best final round brief.

This year marks the 91st anniversary of the Harlan Fiske Stone Moot Court, which was founded at Columbia Law School in 1925 by the Story Inn—a chapter of the legal fraternity Phi Delta Phi. The competition is named in honor of Harlan Fiske Stone, Class of 1898, who was a member of the Story Inn while a student at the Law School.

Stone was named dean of Columbia Law School in 1910. He served in that capacity until 1924, when U.S. President Calvin Coolidge appointed him attorney general of the United States. Stone was named to the U.S. Supreme Court the following year and was elevated to chief justice in 1941.

This program is made possible by the generous support of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.