Jessup Moot Court

Try-Out for the 2025-26 Team!

Tryouts for the 2024-25 team have closed. Thank you to everyone for participating. If you’re interested in joining the 2025-26 team (or if you’re interested in learning more), please fill out this form!

2024 Team Wins 2nd Place Brief, 3rd Place Oralist, 7th Place Oralist Prizes

The Harvard Law School has returned from the regional competition with an armful of prizes. The team’s combined memorials ranked second overall, and two members of the team took home oralist prizes.

The 24-25 team consists of Ju Hee Ahn (JD’25), Scarlett Aylsworth (JD’24), Kyra Du (JD’25), Myron Zhang (JD’25), and Sabrina Zhang (JD’25). Priyanka Banerjee (LLM’24) is the team’s coach. Andrew Loewenstein of Foley Hoag and Carla Yoon (JD’21) are the team’s coaches.

2022 World Champions

The Harvard Law School Jessup team has emerged as the World Champions for the 2022 competition, besting over 500 other teams from across the world.

This is the first time Harvard has ever won Jessup, ever since the creation of the competition in 1960.

Marta Canneri was awarded the award for the Best Oralist in the Final Round and the team was awarded the 7th best memorial in the world. Watch the finals here!

 

U.S. National Champions, 2022

The Harvard Law School Jessup team has emerged as the National Champions for the 2022 competition, besting 84 other teams representing law schools all over the US.

This is the first time Harvard has won the competition in recent years.

The winning team consists of Marta Canneri (’22), Katherine Shen (’22), Stephanie Gullo (’22), Nanami Hirata (’23), and Hannah Sweeney (’24). The winning oralists were Marta Canneri, Katherine Shen, and Hannah Sweeney.  The memorials (briefs) submitted by the Harvard team were ranked third of the 86 submissions.

The U.S. Competition consisted of four qualifying rounds followed by five elimination rounds culminating in the Championship Round argued at 4:00 on Sunday, February 27.  The HLS team was undefeated in all nine rounds, arguing for the Applicant in three rounds and for the Respondent in six.

Shayan Khan (LLM ’22) is the Team’s Coach. Andrew Loewenstein of Foley Hoag, LLP and Maria Laura Pessarini (LLM ’22) are the Team Advisors.  The competition forms the subject matter of the HLS workshop “Oral Argument before International Tribunals” led by Visiting Professor Peter Murray.

The team will continue to compete in the International Rounds of the Jessup Competition which will take place in late March.

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The Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition is the world’s largest and most prestigious moot court. It was first held at Harvard in 1960. Today, participants from over 645 law schools in more than 95 countries participate in the annual moot. The competition is a simulation of a fictional dispute between countries before the International Court of Justice, the judicial organ of the United Nations. Each team prepares oral and written pleadings, arguing both the applicant and respondent positions of the case.

Contact [email protected] with any questions!