IDAS Wins $5000 Scholarship Fund from Dallas Law Firm

The Dallas-based law firm of Bickel and Brewer announced today a $5000 grant to the International Debate Academy Slovenia, sponsored by ZIP Slovenia and the World Debate Institute USA, for scholarship funds to bring the best and neediest of students to the 2009 program, a week-long intensive debate training program that will take place in November.

Sarah Marshala, director of the Bickel and Brewer Foundation, called in this message to Bojana Skrt, IDAS director. "I am happy and very grateful for this award, and I am excited about now offering more scholarships than ever. I hope that the example set by this visionary law firm is something that lawyers in Europe will learn from," said Skrt.

Bickel & Brewer is one of the most aggressive, creative and successful litigation firms in the United States. The firm's concentration in complex litigation and dispute resolution is not confined to particular substantive areas of the law, but to the litigation practice itself. As such, many of the firm's attorneys have gained national recognition by handling cutting-edge cases in a wide variety of substantive legal fields. Bickel & Brewer has proven time and again that the well-honed skills of its litigators may be universally applied to forge profitable resolutions of disputes in any area of law or any area of commercial enterprise. Although the trial and forensic abilities of Bickel & Brewer litigators are unparalleled, these tools are often used as strategic deterrents rather than as implements of first resort. Thus, a substantial portion of the firm's practice is preventative counseling and problem solving. The firm recognizes that in many instances its clients' objectives are best served by successfully avoiding litigation and that success is measured by the advice and counsel provided to achieve this end. However, if full-scale litigation is in the client's best interest, no law firm in the country understands and successfully galvanizes the process as well as Bickel & Brewer. http://www.bickelbrewer.com/index.php?id=the_firm

The International Debate Academy Slovenia is now in its seventh year and has become one of the world's premier debate training programs, focusing on training in the WUDC format. Students from over twenty countries have attended the program, and faculty members come from the top ranks of debate trainers from around the world. http://debate.uvm.edu/idas.html

The dates for 2009 are 21-29 November 2009.

One of the other events Bickel and Brewer supports is the International Public Policy Forum that it operates in partnership with New York University. It is a debate contest that allows high school students from all over the world to compete against each other to earn an all-expense paid trip to New York City for the top eight teams and a chance to win $10,000. Formerly known as the Bickel & Brewer/ NYU National Public Policy Forum, the IPPF is a unique debate competition involving public and private schools from across the globe. Visit www.nppf.net for more information! See their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/International-Public-Policy-Forum/211483875322?ref=ts .