2026 Van Vleck Constitutional Law Moot Court Final

2026 Van Vleck Constitutional Law Moot Court Competition

Thursday, February 5, 2026 | 1:30 pm

Lisner Auditorium

Welcome to the final round of the 76^th annual Van Vleck Constitutional Law Moot Court Competition. This competition is our largest and longest-running upper-level advocacy competition and is named for William C. Van Vleck, the longest-serving dean in the history of the law school. He joined the GW Law faculty immediately after graduating with his JD in 1912 and served as dean of the law school from 1924 to 1948. Jake Stein, who graduated from GW Law during Van Vleck's last year as dean, described him as follows: "He was imperious. He would not invite you to speak with him after class. His idea was, you are here to learn, and I am here to teach. He was all business."This attitude was reflected in the law school's recruitment brochure from that era, Studying Law in the Nation's Capital: Advantages of the George Washington University Law School (1927), which read in pertinent part, "Examinations are graded severely with the purpose of weeding out the slothful, inattentive, and incompetent." Until shortly after Dean Van Vleck’s retirement, moot court competitions or "Case Clubs” were run through the Student Bar Association. In 1950, the Case Club became a separate student organization now known as the Moot Court Board, and this competition was named for Dean Van Vleck.

Moot court competitions provide valuable opportunities for students to hone their oral and written advocacy skills by engaging in mock appellate litigation. This year’s competition began last September, when a record 124 upper-level students started researching the problem. Each team of two competitors was required to submit a written brief and present an oral argument for each side.

To earn the right to present their arguments in this distinguished panel of judges, the two teams competing in the final round advanced through five previous rounds, which - in honor of Dean Van Vleck - were used for "weeding out the slothful, inattentive, and incompetent." To that end, all rounds were judged by practicing attorneys. The winning team of the competition will receive the Jacob Burns Award at the annual Awards Ceremony held the day before their graduation.

Students, faculty, and staff must register for a free ticket to attend. GW Law students, faculty, and staff will receive information on how to register in their emails.

All attendees will be screened with magnetometers prior to entering Lisner Auditorium. All bags permitted into the event space must be screened, and bags must adhere to standard airline personal item sizing (18 x 14 x 8 inches and smaller), e.g., purses, bookbags, and briefcases. All large bags and containers are prohibited.

Problem Synopsis

SocialAI, Inc., is a social media company that boasts a fully automated social media platform that is exclusively run by its self-developed AI program, the Behavioral Recognition Artificial Intelligence Network ("BRaiN”). The BRaiN independently and autonomously makes all decisions on SocialAI’s platform concerning what is to be promoted, advertised, or removed. The State of New Columbia saw that the use of AI could serve as a potential danger and enacted the Commonsense Artificial Intelligence Review Act (“CAIR” Act).  It requires human review of content flagged by social media users and, if requested, a reasoned explanation by a human of why the content is not removed, with a fine and an injunction imposed on the offending party.  SocialAI failed to comply with the statute, and at least one individual was hospitalized due to misleading advertisements that were promoted by BRaiN to sensitive individuals.  New Columbia sued SocialAI for violating the CAIR Act, and SocialAI filed a motion to dismiss the complaint in the Superior Court of the State of New Columbia, which was granted. Upon appeal, the Supreme Court of the State of New Columbia affirmed the judgment of dismissal.  The issue is now before the Supreme Court of the United States with the following questions presented:

Issue I

Whether Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. § 230, preempts New Columbia’s Commonsense Artificial Intelligence Review Act as applied to petitioner SocialAI, Inc. in this case.

Issue II

Whether New Columbia’s Commonsense Artificial Intelligence Review Act violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution as applied to petitioner SocialAI, Inc. in this case.

Full Problem (PDF)

The Competitors

The Judges

• John G. Roberts, Jr.
• Joan L. Larsen
• Barbara Lagoa

 

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John G. Roberts, Jr., Supreme Court of the United States

John G. Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice of the United States, was born in Buffalo, New York, on January 27, 1955. He married Jane Sullivan in 1996, and they have two children - Josephine and Jack. He received an AB from Harvard College in 1976 and a JD from Harvard Law School in 1979. He served as a law clerk for Judge Henry J. Friendly of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1979–1980, and as a law clerk for then-Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist of the Supreme Court of the United States during the 1980 Term. He served as a Special Assistant to the Attorney General of the United States from 1981–1982, Associate Counsel to President Ronald Reagan, White House Counsel’s Office from 1982–1986, and as Principal Deputy Solicitor General from 1989–1993. From 1986–1989 and 1993–2003, he practiced law in Washington, DC. He served as a Judge on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 2003–2005. Nominated as Chief Justice of the United States by President George W. Bush, he assumed that office on September 29, 2005.

 

 

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Joan L. Larsen, United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit 

Judge Larsen received her BA, with highest honors, from the University of Northern Iowa. She graduated first in her class from Northwestern University School of Law, where she served as articles editor of the Northwestern University Law Review and earned the John Paul Stevens Award for Academic Excellence. Judge Larsen began her legal career as a law clerk to the Hon. David B. Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit and to Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States. She next joined the law firm of Sidley Austin, where she was a member of the Constitutional, Criminal, and Civil Litigation Section.  She later served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the United States Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel. Judge Larsen was a faculty member at the University of Michigan Law School, where she was also Special Counsel to the Dean and received the L. Hart Wright Award for Excellence in Teaching. Before her appointment to the federal bench, Judge Larsen served two terms as a Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court. 

 

 

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Barbara Lagoa, United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit

Judge Lagoa was born in Miami, Florida. She is married to Paul C. Huck, Jr., an attorney. They have three daughters. Judge Lagoa received her Bachelor of Arts cum laude in 1989 from Florida International University. She earned her Juris Doctor from Columbia University School of Law in 1992, where she served as an Associate Editor of the Columbia Law Review. Judge Lagoa practiced at Greenberg Traurig focused on general and complex commercial litigation. In 2003, she joined the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida as an Assistant United States Attorney. Governor Jeb Bush appointed her in June 2006 to serve on the Third District Court of Appeal. On January 1, 2019, she became the first Hispanic female Chief Judge of the Third District Court of Appeal. On January 9, 2019, she became the first Latina and the first Cuban American woman appointed to serve on the Florida Supreme Court.  Judge Lagoa left that Court on December 6, 2019, when she received her commission as a judge on the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals based in Atlanta from President Donald Trump.