LSLU Law Professor Jeff Brooks and Lewis & Clark Law School Professor Dagmar Butte co-authored this year’s Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition problem and were both awarded the Pamela Young Award in recognition of their volunteer efforts.
Just before the winner of the 2024 Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition was announced in Washington D.C. this spring, LSU Law Professor Jeff Brooks unexpectedly received an honor of his own.
“I was completely surprised and very honored,” said Brooks, who co-authored this year’s competition problem and has been involved with organizing and facilitating the competition—the largest of its kind in the world, with participants from roughly 700 law schools in over 100 countries—for nearly two decades. “This year of working with Jessup has been incredibly transformative and very special.”
In recognition of his volunteer work to help make the Jessup Competition a success year after year, Brooks was presented with the Pamela Young Award. For years, Brooks has served as a U.S. National Administrator and volunteered as a judge, but his history with Jessup stems from his time as a student at Tulane University Law School.
During his final year of law school, Brooks traveled to the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center as a member of Tulane’s Jessup team to compete in the U.S. Southwest Super Regional Competition in 2006.
“It’s really cool that I work here now, since I competed here as a student,” said Brooks, who holds the Preis PLC Director of Advocacy professorship and also serves as Director of the LSU Law Moot Court/Trial Advocacy Program. “LSU Law has gone way above and beyond in their support. Every dean and chancellor I’ve worked with has supported my work with Jessup, and it demonstrates LSU Law’s commitment to advocacy training.”
After graduating from Tulane with his J.D., Brooks continued to volunteer as an administrator for the Jessup Competition while practicing as a trial attorney in the Special Federal Litigation Division of the New York City Law Department. He returned to the Bayou State four years later to join the LSU Law faculty and continue mentoring the next generation of trial advocates.
Since joining the Law Center faculty, Brooks has helped facilitate hundreds of moot court competitions, including for Jessup, and coached several award-winning teams of LSU Law students. In 2017, the Law Center’s Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition team placed as semifinalists and one of the top four teams at the United States South National rounds of the Jessup Competition.
The 2017 competition marked the first time that Brooks authored the competition problem for Jessup. Fast forward nearly seven years later, and Brooks found himself once again writing the Jessup competition problem, this time with Professor Dagmar Butte of Lewis & Clark Law School, who also received a Pamela Young Award.
LSU Law Professor Jeff Brooks with his fellow judges for a quarterfinal match of the 2024 Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition.
For Brooks, volunteering with Jessup is a labor of love. Along with helping create an exceptionally competitive and memorable experience for students, he enjoys working alongside the law students and faculty from across the United States and around the world during the weeklong competition, which is held in Washington, D.C. each year.
“It’s magical to have students from different countries and cultures together in one room who would not have met otherwise,” he said.
Through his nearly 20-year involvement with the Jessup Competition, Brooks has built a strong network of fellow faculty members, competition administrators, and “Jessup alums.” On the last day of this year’s competition alone, he met with Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon of the Supreme Court of Singapore (a Jessup alumnus), Judge María Teresa Infante Caffi of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and Judge Ganna Yudkivska of the European Court of Human Rights, all of whom served as judges for the final round.
Brooks knows if he needs volunteers for a competition or a lead for field placement opportunities across the country—or out of the country—he can turn to his Jessup network. In turn, Jessup knows they can rely on him for all their civil law and appellate advocacy needs. Last summer, they approached him about bringing a delegation of 10 senior lawyers from the Office of the Attorney General of Bangladesh to the Law Center for a week-long specialized appellate advocacy training program. Drawing on LSU Law faculty strengths in courtroom advocacy and legal writing, Brooks created a specialized appellate advocacy training program for the delegation that focused on oral arguments and provided individualized feedback.
“Jessup has been a major part of my life,” said Brooks. “I’ve met friends and colleagues from around the world through Jessup. It truly is a family.”
