Cornell law students Teri L. Menke '96 and Carol A. Timm '97 are world champions, of a sort.

The duo out-argued law students from 38 other universities representing 19 countries in the 1996 Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot, held March 31 at the International Arbitral Center in Vienna.

Menke and Timm will be honored for their efforts by U.S. Solicitor General Drew S. Days in a ceremony on May 20 at 2:15 p.m. at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.

Menke, of Leawood, Kan., will join the Baltimore law firm of Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll after she receives her juris doctorate from Cornell this month. Timm, of Baker City, Ore., is an editor for the Cornell International Law Journal and vice president of Cornell's International Law Society. She will receive her juris doctorate in 1997.

The students were selected to represent Cornell after they received the highest scores in last fall's campus competition.

In the international competition, each school prepares and submits a claimant's brief and a respondent's brief and argues each side over the course of four arbitration rounds. The rounds, similar to moot court proceedings, are then scored and four semifinalists are selected. The Cornell team defeated teams from King's Inn, Ireland, in the semifinals and Deakin University, Australia, in the final.

The issue argued involved a request for the production of documents in an action involving a broken contractual relationship between two international parties. Menke argued for and against the production of documents based on American Arbitration Association rules in an international proceeding. International arbitration, as opposed to U.S. court procedure, limits the availability of discovery action. Timm's arguments were based on an analysis of contractual terms and application of a United Nations treaty governing the international sale of goods.

The competition was organized by the Institute of International Commercial Law at Pace University School of Law and sponsored by the American Arbitration Association, Austrian International Arbitration Centre, International Chamber of Commerce, Law Faculty of the University of Vienna and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law.