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Columbia Law School welcomed teams from 12 U.S. and European law schools for a European Law Moot Court Regional Final February 5-7 in New York City, hosting competitors and academic and practitioner judges from eighteen countries, including Professor Frank Emmert from Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law who served as a judge.

The case for the 2015 competition involved questions of what constitutes state aid under the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The law schools participating in the regional final at Columbia Law School were: ULB Bruxelles, Heidelberg University, University of Lucerne, HEC Paris, Leiden University, University of Mannheim, European University Institute, Stockholm University, Maastricht University, Lund University, Charles University, and American University. The winning team from Maastricht will go on to the All European Finals at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg in March to meet and compete with the winning teams from three other Regional Finals.

Prof. Emmert was a competitor in the very first edition of this Moot Court in the 1988-1989 academic year. On the bench at Columbia this year, he was re-united with Tom Kennedy, formerly head of the information service of the European Court of Justice, who was one of the judges of the first edition. “Since catching the bug in 1988, I have served on the case committee for the EU Moot, drafted three of the problems so far, organized two of the regional competitions (Florence and Tallinn), and I’ve been a regular judge for the last twelve years or so,” said Professor Emmert. “This should serve as a warning for (potential) future student competitors: The European Law Moot Court can be quite addictive!”