The Bob Loblaw Law Bowl

[theMoMA]

I'm planning to write a moderately sized tournament of shorter (around four-line) tossups based on the first-year law curriculum to be played at a summer tournament in 2011. In a possible violation of the Robinson-Patman Act, non-law students will get a discount to play. Cost will be relative to the number of packets that I decide to write.

Distribution will probably consist of heavy portions of:

Torts
Contracts
Criminal law and procedure
Civil Procedure
Property
Constitutional law

Tossups will mostly be case-based conceptual tossups or on specific cases themselves. Some areas will obviously require more statutory or rules-based clues and answers. I will throw in some questions on jurists, justices, law professors, etc. There will probably be a couple couple of "fun" trashy questions in each packet.

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

I'll sit in the back of the room surfing the internet on my laptop during this, possibly making gchat comments about the horrendous tie the moderator is wearng.

[marnold]

The entry fee will be $50,000.

[abnormal abdomen]

Hey, so I'm not playing this or anything, but I just want to say that this tournament name is so fantastic.

[DumbJaques]

I shall play this tournament with my delicious non-law student discount. I anticipate my performance on the Contracts distribution will be an extended metaphor for my future performance in that class.

[dtaylor4]

Depending on when/where this set is run, I may come out of retirement to play this damn set. You better believe I'm gonna re-read my business law book if I do.

[theMoMA]

Amid rumors that this tournament may have been canceled, I have sent Ryan an email requesting the Saturday night slot. If I get that slot, this tournament will happen. It will consist of somewhere between 40 and 100 four-line tossups. Cost will be $1 for every ten questions in the set (so if the set has 40 questions, you pay $4), with a flat $3 discount for non-law students (graduates and rising 1Ls not included). I will post the final question count, and thus the final tournament cost, sometime before CO weekend (assuming the tournament is happening).

Logistics

Singles, likely shootout style. If enough people sign up, I may run a two-room singles tournament, where the two prelim rooms play the first half of the questions, then the top and bottom halves of both rooms combine into two top and bottom rooms to play the second half for final placements. Either way, the questions will be short and the tournament should last no longer than an hour.

I may organize some kind of food delivery for participants if desired.

Distribution

Each twenty questions will consist of 3 each of the following: torts, contracts, criminal law/procedure, civil procedure, property, and constitutional law. The remaining two questions will be wild cards (they might be on judges/courts, other areas of law, pop culture and the law, etc.). This is more of a guideline than a rigid distribution, so I may deviate a little or classify things leniently in order to make it work if I have a hard time filling out answers in certain areas.

Difficulty

The goal is to have difficulty on a rough 5-10-5 distribution, where five questions are easily answerable to the lay-quizbowler, ten questions are cans of corn for the average 1L (and the lay-quizbowler stands a fighting chance), and five questions challenge law students/indulge my whims. My goal is to keep all categories accessible in this way, though obviously some categories (such as constitutional law) lend themselves better to lay-quizbowler-accessible questions than others (such as civil procedure). I will try to correct for this as much as possible.

Should I, a non-law student, play this tournament?

Anyone with reasonable knowledge of the American judicial system will enjoy this tournament. Lots of people have baseline knowledge about constitutional law, criminal law, the Supreme Court, civil litigation, etc. That kind of knowledge will be rewarded. If you like quizbowl, you should play. And even if you don't like quizbowl, the questions are short.

[Papa's in the House]

I am interested in playing this tournament.

[theMoMA]

Update: tournament happening Saturday night. Final question tally to follow next week.

[theMoMA]

I'm on track for 80 questions, but I'd like to know, do people demand this event for Saturday night? I could alternately inquire about hosting it at the various VCU Open mirrors for interested parties. It seems less likely that the tournament would run at 2 AM in that case. Thoughts?

[Cheynem]

I'd probably be more likely to play it if it was at a VCUO, but I don't care a whole lot. You could adopt a wait and see approach and see what time CO proper ends.

[Mike Bentley]

I'd be in favor of playing this on Saturday night at CO.

[theMoMA]

You could adopt a wait and see approach and see what time CO proper ends.

That sounds like a good plan. If CO concludes very late, or if there isn't a critical mass of players for a Saturday-night event for some other reason, I'll hold off until VCUO.

[Tees-Exe Line]

I'm disappointed to hear about this possible postponement because while there's no chance I would actually play, I did want to give the invocation for this tournament in the form of a solo rendition of the Lord Chancellor's song from Iolanthe.

[Cheynem]

I'm sure you can still do this regardless. Perhaps record it and make it available for future mirrors.

[Tees-Exe Line]

But then a recording of me singing the Lord Chancellor's song from Iolanthe would exist.

[Ukonvasara]

But then a recording of me singing the Lord Chancellor's song from Iolanthe would exist.

I'd pay for a copy.

[theMoMA]

Any law students or lawyers who aren't going to be at CO are invited to playtest the questions on the IRC tonight at around 10 PM central time. Shoot me an email at hartam@gmail.com if you are interested. It's not impossible that I will host mirrors at VCUO, so if you're planning to be at one of those sites, you may want to hold off.

[theMoMA]

This tournament occurred. Ryan Westbrook emerged victorious. The scores in the finals were:

Ryan Westbrook: 9-5, 65
David Seal: 9-8, 50
Eric Kwartler: 7-7, 35
Mike Sorice: 1-0, 10
Chris Ray: 2-3, 5

Matt Jackson, Brendan Byrne, and Ike Jose went 0-0.

Marnold went down in true gunner style, posting a line of 4-8.

In the prelims, Eric and Marnold paced the field in their respective rooms with 180 and 175 points, respectively. David had 80, Ryan 75, Chris 30, and Ike, Mike S., Matt J., and Brendan all finished in the black.

In the lower room, Mike Cheyne paced the field with 50 points, followed by Mike Bentley with 25, Charles Martin with 10, and Rom and Matt Lafer in the red.

I hope everyone enjoyed the tournament.

[Cheynem]

This was I think probably less entertaining for non law students than what Andrew may have intended. I don't really regret playing it and there isn't anything wrong with it (and, whether intentionally or not, the finals questions were seemingly far more accessible), but the vast majority of the questions were very difficult for me, as someone who likes American history, Supreme Court cases, and crime, to answer.

I assume the questions are not cleared?

[theMoMA]

Questions aren't cleared just yet. If VCUO sites think that they'll get some benefit hosting this tournament (hosting it shootout style should take about 45 minutes, or closer to an hour if there's a rebracket involved), they're welcome to do so. I will gladly host/read such a site at Maryland for any interested parties.

[Mike Bentley]

This was I think probably less entertaining for non law students than what Andrew may have intended. I don't really regret playing it and there isn't anything wrong with it (and, whether intentionally or not, the finals questions were seemingly far more accessible), but the vast majority of the questions were very difficult for me, as someone who likes American history, Supreme Court cases, and crime, to answer.

Yeah, this is pretty much how I felt. I would have liked to have seen some more questions on historically important cases rather than just law-school specific stuff so that the set would have been more enjoyable for non law students. However, at the same time it was only $5 and provided what looked like a lot of fun for actual law students, so it's not a big deal.

[theMoMA]

Eric Douglass has expressed interest in playing the set next weekend at Maryland. I'd be happy to read it for anyone else who's interested for the low, low price of $5. It's up to Chris and the common interest whether this will happen during Saturday's lunch or after the tournament.

[Leo Wolpert]

If I end up playing VCUO trash, I'd be tempted to play this as well.

[theMoMA]

If I end up playing VCUO trash, I'd be tempted to play this as well.

Since I'm interested in accommodating as many law types as possible, what time would work out best for you? If Eric's planning to be around and we wouldn't lose others in that silent minority of interested people, I'd be fine doing it over lunch on Sunday so that's another option.

[theMoMA]

Hey, the first post in this thread is now a poll. Please vote on your ideal time if you plan to play this tournament at VCU Open. This will also help me assess how many people are planning to play, so please don't vote unless you want to participate.

[theMoMA]

Also (and sorry to bombard forum readers with yet another post in this thread) please post if you'd like to play and any of those options absolutely won't work for you.

[theMoMA]

Alright, VCU Open attendees. The masses have spoken (or Leo has just created multiple accounts to stuff the ballot box) and I will be hosting this tournament on Sunday afternoon during lunch, pending approval from the relevant authorities. I hope that everyone who has voted and wants to play will be around on Sunday.

The logistics are: bring me $5 for your entry fee and make your own plans for procuring nourishment. I will likely read the tournament (of 82 questions) as one big shootout unless we have enough people to justify doing two rooms. Anticipate a 45-minute-long event if there is no rebracket, and approximately an hour-long affair if there is.

[theMoMA]

After much price-finagling, this event's VCU iteration occurred on Sunday during the trash lunch break. In a pure shootout, Leo Wolpert took the crown by a convincing margin, defeating Matt Weiner and Eric Douglass. Jon Pinyan ducked in from Five Guys to play the final 27 of the 82 questions.

Final lines:

Leo: 35-4, 330 points
Matt: 9-3, 75 points
Eric: 9-9, 45 points
Jon: 0-0

I will send the packets to George for archival sometime soon. I hope everyone enjoyed this event. Feel free to discuss in this thread; I will split and move it to "College Discussion" if the discussion becomes extended, but otherwise I don't see a point in cluttering up the boards with a separate thread.

[thedodgerswin]

How absurdly hard was this tournament? How many questions were there? May I see a copy of the set, or will someone run the tournament again?

Congratulations to Leo Wolpert!

[theMoMA]

It was probably a tad on the difficult side, though overall conversion was around 2/3 and I saw plenty of good buzzes at both sites (some on questions that went dead at the other site). Going through the packets, I believe there were eight or nine tossups that went dead at both sites, right around 10% (and some of those were answered in playtesting and may have been answered in the other room at the CO site). I wrote just about everything by picking concepts and cases off of my own outlines or LexisNexis areas of law outlines, so presumably Joe Law Student studying for finals would know many of the things that came up. I'm sending the packets off to George as we speak, so they should be on the quizbowl archive sometime soon.

[Ethnic history of the Vilnius region]

I really enjoyed this event. It definitely had accessibility issues for anyone without legal training, but I don't think that was a bad thing. In a way, I hope that non-lawyers (and hopefully some prospective law students) got a chance to get a taste what you really do learn in law school. I thought this event was didactic in a good way. I was also reminded of how much I've forgotten since the bar exam.

Also, if I'm ever in trouble in Nevada, I'm calling Leo Wolpert!

[Nick]

Andrew sent me this packet a week or so ago and I played it with a buddy. As someone who just completed their first year of law school, I thought it was super-enjoyable. I can see though how anybody not just out of their first year or in law school at all, wouldn't really find this very entertaining. The answer lines were spot on though and I think it was just the right amount of difficulty. Thanks again, Andrew.