Alexandria, Va.— The Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law won the 27th Annual Conrad B. Duberstein National Bankruptcy Moot Court Competition, held March 2-4 in New York. The SMU team was coached Omar J. Alaniz of Baker Botts LLP (Dallas), and the school last won the Duberstein Moot Court Competition in 2016. The competition is co-sponsored by the American Bankruptcy Institute and St. John’s University School of Law. The University of Miami School of Law, coached by Patricia A. Redmond of Stearns, Weaver, Miller, Weissler, Alhadeff & Sitterson, PA (Miami, Fla.), took second place in the competition. Third-place honors were shared by teams from University of Mississippi School of Law and the University of Texas at Austin School of Law. The University of Alabama School of Law won for the Best Brief, and Kathryn Trent from the University of Alabama School of Law won the Best Oralist award.

The competition consists of eight rounds of oral arguments, and the final rounds are held at the Duberstein Federal Courthouse in Brooklyn, N.Y. Many of the teams are coached by ABI practitioners or academic members, and nearly 200 lawyers and federal judges donated their time and expertise to help judge the event. The fact pattern for the competition focused on two key developments stemming from chapter 11 caselaw: The first issue looked at whether 11 U.S.C. § 362(a)(3) is violated when a secured creditor passively retains possession of collateral that it lawfully repossessed from the debtor prior to the petition. The second issue focused on whether 1 U.S.C. § 503(b) permits a court to grant an administrative expense for a substantial contribution in a case under chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code.

Final-round judges for the 2019 competition included Chief Bankruptcy Judge Carla E. Craig (E.D.N.Y., Brooklyn), Chief Bankruptcy Judge Cecilia G. Morris (S.D.N.Y., Poughkeepsie), Judge Michael J. Melloy of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) and Judge Pamela Pepper of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin (Milwaukee). Bankruptcy Judge John T. Gregg (W.D. Mich.; Grand Rapids) and Paul Hage of Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss (Southfield, Mich.) drafted this year’s fact pattern.

The Duberstein Competition, named for the late Judge Conrad B. Duberstein, a St. John’s alumnus and former ABI director, has grown into the largest appellate moot court competition in the nation. ABI’s Endowment Fund awarded $12,000 in cash prizes for the winners during the final night gala dinner at Gotham Hall in New York City on March 4, which was attended by more than 700 members of the New York restructuring community.

For more information on ABI's Conrad B. Duberstein National Bankruptcy Moot Court Competition, please go to http://www.stjohns.edu/academics/graduate/law/academics/llm/duberstein. 

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ABI is the largest multi-disciplinary, nonpartisan organization dedicated to research and education on matters related to insolvency. ABI was founded in 1982 to provide Congress and the public with unbiased analysis of bankruptcy issues. The ABI membership includes nearly 11,000 attorneys, accountants, bankers, judges, professors, lenders, turnaround specialists and other bankruptcy professionals, providing a forum for the exchange of ideas and information. For additional information on ABI, visit www.abi.org. For additional conference information, visit http://www.abi.org/calendar-of-events.