The Fordham Law School team in the 2015 Cardozo/BMI Entertainment and Communications Law Moot Court Competition held over the weekend of March 5–8 captured the national championship and all the other top prizes, including Best Brief. The two members of the team, Hopi Costello ’16 and Amanda Meinhold ’16, won Best Oralist and Second Best Oralist respectively. The team’s editor was Matthew S. Aibel ’15.
The competition case dealt with art and copyright issues and addressed two major legal questions: whether the drawings of an artist automatically constituted a “work for hire” as the contract between the artist and publisher stated, and whether a second artist who made some contributions to the highly successful work became a joint author under copyright law.
The judges for the final round of the competition were Hon. Frank Montalvo, United States District Court Judge for the Western District of Texas, Hon. Mark W. Bennett, United States District Court Judge for the Northern District of Iowa, and Hon. Steven M. Gold, United States Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of New York.
Professor Maria L. Marcus, the team’s faculty coach, said, “The team members wrote a sophisticated and exciting brief. After that, they spent many hours every day in oral practice rounds. At the competition, they proceeded with agility and flair through the knotty issues in the case. Their writing and oral skills proved to be irresistible to the judges.”