Each year, the Law Week and Liberty Bell Committee of the Young Lawyers Division of the North Carolina Bar Association leads the state’s celebration of Law Day with a series of competitions and awards meant to exemplify a particular theme promoting the benefits of the rule of law.

This coming year, Law Day will be celebrated on May 1, 2026, and the chosen theme is “The Rule of Law and the American Dream.” Students are encouraged to participate in a number of competitions to explain and express what this theme means to them. This includes a poster competition for elementary school students, a moot court competition for high school students, and an essay competition for middle and high school students. Additionally, the Law Week and Liberty Bell committee partners with the McIntyre Youth Leadership Challenge, a program dedicated to encouraging students to embrace and practice good citizenship.

Links to the competition pages, including rules and sign-ups, which can be found on the NCBA’s website, are below, and we encourage members to promote these competitions to interested students.

For any attorney, judge, paralegal, or law student who is interested in volunteering, the NCBA will be hosting the regional Moot Court Competition on Saturday, March 21, 2026, at the Bar Center in Cary, North Carolina. Volunteers will serve as judges and timekeepers. The volunteer form is available online.

Those in the legal community are also encouraged to sign up to review videos for the McIntyre Youth Leadership Challenge. The finalists will present their submissions at the North Carolina Court of Appeals on Friday, May 1, 2026. A link for volunteer sign-ups will be provided at a later date.

January 20, 2026/by NCBA YLD