Judging Qualifications/Eligibility

All judges:

1. Must have a paradigm posted on Tabroom.com. Must have a Tabroom.com account, with a Phone Number attached.

2. Experience in judging and coaching policy debate OR being the coach of record employed by the institution entered in the tournament.

Varsity:
1. Judges must be 18+ and have graduated from HS or otherwise lack the ability to exercise HS eligibility.

Novice:
1. Should be 3rd and 4th-year Varsity Debaters with 250 NSDA points in Policy Debate.
2. 2nd-year debaters with at least 150 NSDA points in Policy Debate are acceptable given the entering coaches' discretion.
3. Should have comprehensive paradigms posted, speak to their preferences in policy debate, and lack jokes, etc. The tone should be serious in nature.

4. Student judges must agree to a student judge code of conduct that is sent out the week of the tournament.

5. The tournament reserves the right to remove HS student judges from the pool that it deems unqualified, even if they meet the above standards.

We follow the TOC's judge conflict policy, with a small addendum:

Judges should preclude themselves from judging any competition whom they have previously coached, whether online or in person, paid or unpaid; with whom they've had a close, friendly, and/or personal relationship; and/or toward whom they feel that they cannot be objective for any reason. Judges affiliated with any college or other institution should preclude themselves from judging any competitors whom they have seriously recruited, and judges should preclude themselves from judging entries from their alma mater. Additionally, judges should conflict themselves from judging any institution whom they have been employed by within the last four years.