DePaul’s Center for Art Museum & Cultural Heritage Law, Center for Intellectual Property Law & Information Technology and Appellate Moot Court Society and the Lawyers’ Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation (LCCHP) held the annual National Cultural Heritage Law Moot Court Competition at the Everett McKinley Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago on February 24 and 25, 2012.
Seventeen student teams from across the country addressed issues concerning the Theft of Major Artwork Act (18 U.S.C. § 668). The first issue focused on Congress' Article I, Section 8, authority to regulate interstate commerce and the second issue focused on statutory interpretation of the act. This year's champion team, Richard Poskozim and Filip Zucek, is from IIT Chicago-Kent School of Law. A full list of winners is available on the competition's website.
Throughout the two-day competition, more than 50 DePaul law students volunteered, served as a ghost team and assisted in writing the bench memo, and more than 100 attorneys, including many nationally renowned cultural property experts and DePaul law faculty, served as judges. Additional support was provided by international auction house Sotheby’s.
The final round was judged by the Hon. William J. Bauer, U.S. Court of Appeals for 7th Circuit, Hon. Diane P. Wood, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, Hon. Mary Mikva, Circuit Court of Cook County, and Hon. Warren Wolfson, Illinois Appellate Court (retired).
Established by DePaul and LCCHP in 2010, the competition is the first and only in the nation to focus entirely on the field of cultural heritage law.
The 2013 National Cultural Heritage Law Moot Court Competition will take place on February 22 and 23 in Chicago. For more information and to view the 2012 results, photo gallery and final-round video, visit the competition website.
