Rules

A program does not earn points for a top finish at a comp it is sponsoring.

"Top finish" includes semifinals, finals and winner.  I do not award an extra point to
either semifinalist even if a comp identifies who came in third and who came in fourth.  
For example, at a 24-team comp, a winner will be awarded 23 points, a finalist 22 points,
and semifinalists 20 points each.  

At Jessup, ABA NAAC and NYC Bar National MCC, top eight American teams will earn double
the points of American teams "edged out" at that national/international runoff of
national/international qualifiers.  At Pace Enviro, top nine teams receive points.

"Team" is defined to exclude teams from sponsor schools or non-US law schools.  

"Ranking Season" is calendar year rather than school year.  A two-stage comp straddling
two calendar years will be placed in the Ranking Season in which it began oral arguments.

The rankings do not incorporate anything beyond top finishes - will not count awards for
best brief, advocate, professionalism, etc.

A two-stage comp is treated as two comps for the most part.  Accordingly, a two-stage 200-
team comp will not earn the winning program 199 points.  This prevents a single team from
making a program look good.  A good program will develop numerous law students into
strong advocates.  (Imagine: if I had done otherwise, and the winner of moot court's 185-
team NYC Bar National MCC had earned 184 points for its program, it would have taken
other programs semifinalist finishes at ten 24-team comps to catch up.)

Contact me with top finishes at qualifying comps by emailing
TheRanker@LawSchoolAdvocacy.com.  Send me links/official emails (links to brief banks so
I can count the number of teams).  Send me your competition contact's email address so I
can email them.

There is no longer any minimum number of teams for a comp to count.  The "locked" 2007
and 2008 Ranking Seasons will not change.

For moot court, the team must be paying/brief-writing (a no-show is excused if these two
requirements are met).    

Invitational comps are not fine.  The comps must be open to all.  However, though I don't
like the practice, comps open only to ABA schools are fine.  Members-only comps are fine
if membership is open to everyone.      

The 2009 Ranking Season will not be locked until early 2010 to account for the national
run-off of the NYC Bar National MCC.  Get me all results by that time.
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BRIAN KOPPEN'S
LAW SCHOOL ADVOCACY