Online Training Developed for Vis Moot Law Competition Participants

The Vis Moot competition is an important one for Pitt Law students. Every year, a select group from the School of Law join teams of students from hundreds of law schools in 65 countries to present written and oral arguments in a fictitious commercial dispute.

The “problem” to argue is presented in October and the actual competition takes place in Austria in the spring. Ronald Brand, the Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg University Professor of Law, has been training law students for the Vis Moot and accompanying them abroad for more than 15 years. But this year, with the entire process moving online, he had to pivot.

So, Brand, working with the Commercial Law Development Program at the U.S. Department of Commerce, developed training videos for the law students. In just three weeks, the 2021 Vis Moot training page had 2,250 visits and is currently averaging 156 visits a day. Students logging in are from Afghanistan, Albania, Bahrain, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Egypt, France, Germany, Iraq, Jordan, Kosovo, Maldives, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.

“The Vis Moot has been a great pedagogical tool—not only helping educate a new generation of international lawyers, but also resulting in valuable curriculum development in law schools in many transition countries,” said Brand, who is also the driving force behind Pitt’s Center for International Legal Education. “It has been a real privilege to be involved in this process, and to work with our Commerce Department colleagues to make it happen.”