National Pretrial Competition
The National Pretrial Competition combines real world pretrial and trial practice. Courts across the country use pretrial hearings to determine constitutional, evidentiary, and procedural matters before trial. NPTC gives student advocates the opportunity to practice a complex hearing by directing and crossing 4 witnesses and making complex factual and legal arguments on multiple evidentiary issues. Students will develop skills for properly researching, analyzing, and litigating important, case-dispositive, pretrial matters in an evidentiary hearing almost identical to a full trial. Prior to the hearing, as in real practice, the students prepare for their hearing by writing memorandums of law on each side of the case in support of their positions.
This year, the problem follows faculty member, Louise Shepard, at the Westmoore Military Institute who claims she was subjected to a retaliatory hostile work environment after engaging in the protected activity of opposing Westmoor's discriminatory practices. Westmoor denies Shepard's claim and raises the affirmative Faragher-Ellerth defense, claiming that Westmoor exercised reasonable care to avoid harrassment and eliminate it when it might occur, and Shepard unreasonably failed to take advantage of corrective opportunities provided by Westmoor.
Sixteen teams from law schools across the country are set to compete in 4 preliminary rounds, with the fourth preliminary round serving as a silent quarterfinal. The winners of the silent quarterfinal rounds will advance to a semifinal, and then the top two schools will compete to take home the first place award. Every year, Stetson invites from the applicant pool two schools that have not competed at NPTC within the last five years to further competition accessibility for advocacy programs.
The following teams will compete in NPTC 2025:
- Baylor University School of Law
- Campbell University Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law
- Chapman University, Fowler School of Law
- Charleston School of Law
- Emory University School of Law
- Mississippi College School of Law
- Louisiana State University Paul M. Herbert Law Center
- Regent University School of Law
- Texas Tech University School of Law
- Tulane School of Law
- William & Mary Law School
- University at Buffalo School of Law
- University of Illinois Chicago School of Law
- University of Miami School of Law
- University of Richmond School of Law
- University of Virginia School of Law
The Eighteenth Annual National Pretrial Competition will take place from October 2-5, 2025, in the new Advocacy Institute at Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport, FL.
Please mark your calendars with the following dates:
Problem Release: August 1, 2025
Memorandums of Law due: September 1, 2025
Evidentiary Hearing: On Stetson's College of Law Campus from October 2-5, 2025
Please email [email protected] with any questions.