IIT Chicago-Kent reaches the National Baseball Arbitration Competition's "final four"
The IIT Chicago-Kent team of Brian Crump '14, Lee Oliff '14 and Alex Reich '13 finished among the top four teams in the country in the sixth annual National Baseball Arbitration Competition held January 23 to 25 in New Orleans.
The competition, sponsored by Tulane Law School's Sports Law Society, is a simulated salary arbitration competition modeled closely on the procedures used by Major League Baseball (MLB). The tournament's main purpose is to provide law students with the opportunity to sharpen their oral and written advocacy skills while allowing them to use those skills within the specialized context of MLB's salary arbitration proceedings.
This year's competition comprised three hypothetical arbitration cases involving New York Mets' first baseman Ike Davis, Colorado Rockies center fielder Dexter Fowler, and former Atlanta Braves pitcher Tommy Hanson. Forty law school teams from the United States and Canada competed in this year's tournament which was judged by a wide range of MLB executives, attorneys, sports journalists and agents.
IIT Chicago-Kent advanced to the quarterfinal round after defeating teams from Thomas Jefferson School of Law, the University of Iowa College of Law and George Mason University School of Law in the preliminary rounds. In the quarterfinals, IIT Chicago-Kent defeated the University of Pennsylvania before losing to Tulane in the semifinals.
"Our team did a great job," said IIT Chicago-Kent adjunct professor and faculty sponsor Eldon L. Ham '76. "The team made it to the semi-finals, where they even eked out a third-place nod over Virginia [the other semi-finalist] based on a comparative scoring formula."
Team member Brian Crump is a second-year student who graduated from the Illinois State University with a degree in finance. Teammate Lee Oliff, also a second-year student, earned a degree in finance from the University of Kansas. Teammate Alex Reich is a third-year student who graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in psychology. The team was coached by Professor Ham who teaches a course in Sports, Law and Society. Attorney Stephen Veltman '05 assisted the team in the preparation for oral arguments.
Founded in 1888, IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law is celebrating "125 years of distinctive legal education." IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law is the law school of Illinois Institute of Technology, a private, Ph.D.-granting institution with programs in engineering, psychology, architecture, business, design and law.
