IIT Chicago-Kent repeats as National Cultural Heritage Law Moot Court Competition champions

IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law successfully defended its championship in the third annual National Cultural Heritage Law Moot Court Competition. The tournament, sponsored by DePaul University College of Law and the Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation, was held February 24 and 25 at the Everett McKinley Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago. This is IIT Chicago-Kent's second consecutive National Cultural Heritage Law Moot Court Competition championship.

This year's competition addressed two issues related to the federal Theft of Major Artwork Act. The first focuses on Congress' constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce; the second deals with the statutory interpretation of the law.

Second-year students Richard Poskozim and Filip Zucek defeated a team from South Texas College of Law in the final round before a panel that featured the Honorables William J. Bauer and Diane P. Wood of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit; the Honorable Warren D. Wolfson, retired justice of the Illinois Appellate Court; and the Honorable Mary L. Mikva of the Circuit Court of Cook County. Poskozim and Zucek were coached by third-year students Stephen Gardner and Caitlyn Jones, members of the IIT Chicago-Kent team that won last year's National Cultural Heritage Competition.

A second team from IIT Chicago-Kent—Sinjan Bose, Kirtana Kalavapudi, and Joshua Lurie—reached the semifinals of the competition. This is the second consecutive year two teams from the law school reached the tournament's final four.

Winning team member Richard Poskozim graduated from The Ohio State University with a major in journalism and a minor in political science. Teammate Filip Zucek completed his undergraduate education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a major in history and minors in international studies and German.

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. In 2008 and 2009, IIT Chicago-Kent won the National Moot Court Competition, the largest appellate advocacy tournament in the United States. In 2008, IIT Chicago-Kent became the first law school to win both the National Trial Competition and the National Moot Court Competition in the same year.