NATIONAL NATIVE AMERICAN LAW STUDENTS ASSOCIATION
MOOT COURT COMPETITION
and
NALSA INDIAN LAW/SOUTH DAKOTA LAW REVIEW SYMPOSIUM
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH DAKOTA SCHOOL OF LAW

Vermillion, South Dakota
February 18-20, 2010
Sponsorship Opportunity

On February 18-20, the University of South Dakota School of Law will host the nation’s pre-eminent Indian Law event. It will include the National Native American Law Students Association (NALSA) Moot Court Competition, the foremost annual Indian law academic competition. The competition will be conducted in conjunction with a scholarly symposium co-sponsored by the South Dakota Law Review and the USD NALSA chapter and with the biennial Dillon Lecture on Indian law. The symposium represents the first time the annual Law Review Symposium has been combined with the NALSA Indian Law Symposium. The latter has been held biennially for more than two decades, making it the longest-running Indian law symposium in the nation. The Dillon Lecture is one of the Law School’s three major scholarly lectures; it is held biennially in conjunction with the Indian Law Symposium and features a major national speaker on Indian law.

Student teams from across the country will compete in the National NALSA Moot Court Competition. Teams from 55 schools have already registered, including teams from the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, University of California-Berkeley, University of Colorado, Columbia University, Gonzaga University, University of Hawaii, University of Iowa, Kansas University, Lewis & Clark University, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, University of Minnesota, University of New Mexico, University of North Dakota, University of Oklahoma, Stanford University, University of Tulsa, UCLA, University of Wisconsin, and William Mitchell College of Law. Many schools are sending multiple teams; for example, Columbia has registered six teams. The current registration represents a 25% increase over the number of teams that participated in last year’s competition in Boulder, Colorado.

The appellate problem for the competition has been drafted by USD Professor Frank Pommersheim, an internationally recognized Indian law expert who sits on several tribal supreme courts. It will involve issues of free exercise of religion in Indian Country. Judges for the Moot Court Competition will include members of the tribal, federal, and state judiciary and lawyers with expertise in Indian law.

The Dillon Lecture will be presented by Professor Matthew Fletcher (Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians), Director of the Indigenous Law & Policy Center of the Michigan State University College of Law. Professor Fletcher is a co-author of the leading national casebook on federal Indian law and a judge and consultant to tribal supreme courts. Continue reading →