When Joseph “Joey” Ravenna ’25 first arrived at Harvard Law School in the fall of 2022, he was intrigued by the plaques he saw in Langdell Hall honoring the winners of something called the Williston Negotiation & Contract Drafting Competition. 

There were several plaques, each with a decade’s worth of names dating back to the middle of the 20th century, but the last winners had been announced in 2015. Ravenna couldn’t help but compare the plaques to those just across the hall that honor the winners of the Ames Moot Court Competition, one of the nation’s most prestigious events featuring appellate brief writing and advocacy. 

“Everyone’s heard of Ames; everyone goes to Ames,” he said. “But there was this parallel competition lurking in the library. Who were these other winners? Why did the competition stop?” 

Ravenna did a little digging and learned that the Williston Competition, exclusively for first-year students, was named for the late, great Harvard Law School Professor Samuel Williston LL.B., A.M. 1888, and that it focused on corporate and transactional law. After debuting in 1957 and running consistently for decades, the competition had lapsed during a time of transition for the student organizations that had partnered on it.  

As it happens, Ravenna and friend Savannah Huitema ’25 had been searching for ways that business-minded students at the law school could get more involved on campus. They were also campaigning to be co-presidents of the Harvard Business Law Review. After learning more about the Williston Competition—including from Assistant Dean for Admissions and Chief Admissions Officer Kristi Jobson ’12, whom they discovered had been a past winner—they decided to revive the event as part of their platform. 

This article was originally published in Harvard Law Today. Read the full article there.