Announcing the 2015 Mayer Brown Invitational

The 2015 Mayer Brown Urban Debate Nationals Qualifier will take place on Saturday, February 28th, with an event schedule that runs from 8:00am until 7:30pm. This qualifying event for the 2015 NAUDL Urban Debate National Championship is being sponsored and hosted by Mayer Brown, a leading global law firm with offices in key business centers all over the world, and headquartered here in Chicago, at 71 S. Wacker Drive. The two winning teams will represent Chicago at the National Urban Debate Championships in Los Angeles in April, virtually all expenses paid. (See below for more on the national tournament.)

Ten schools will be invited to participate in the Mayer Brown Urban Debate National Qualifier, representing all four CDL conferences. These ten teams will include the top two teams in each of the three CDL Varsity Conference Championships on February 20th- 21st, plus four teams selected from the RCC by the CDC. Invited teams will be required to confirm their participation by February 23rd, though RCC teams will be able to confirm earlier than that.

Each school participating will receive $400 in compensation. Each school will be required to supply one judge and will be on its own for transportation to and from the event. Three fine meals will be provided by Mayer Brown during the event.

The event will include a roundtable lunch discussion with some of our incredible Mayer Brown hosts.

The ten teams will be divided into two pods, based on seedings determined by competitive performance during the 2014/15 season, as assessed by the CDC. Each team will debate every other team in its pod once, and each team will debate on the affirmative and the negative twice. Each round will feature two judges. There is no previewing of any kind for this event, as there is no previewing at the 2015 NAUDL Urban Debate National Championship.

More on the National Tournament: The top two teams at the Mayer Brown tournament will represent Chicago at the 2015 NAUDL Urban Debate National Championships in Los Angeles, California April 9th-12th. Almost all of the trip’s expenses will be paid for. At the National Championships, the two top CDL teams will compete against the top teams from 18 other Urban Debate Leagues for the seventh Urban Debate National Championship. Chicago won the first three national championships (2008, 2009, 2010), and has advanced to the semi-finals in each of the years following (2011, 2012, 2013, 2014), with a team in the final round in 2013. A Chicago debater has won the top speaker award in four of the seven national championships. Our 2015 teams will be attempting to return the national championship back to Chicago.

Let us know if you have any questions.

We thank Mayer Brown for its continued generous support of the Chicago Debate League