Archive for the ‘Moot Court’ Category

Stetson University College of Law was announced as the champion of Loyola Law School, Los Angeles’ 8th annual National Civil Trial Competition on Saturday, November 14, 2009 at an awards banquet held at the Omni Los Angeles Hotel at California Plaza in Los Angeles, CA. The winning members of the Stetson team included Derrick Connell, Allana Forte, Katelyn Knaak and Olesea Tran. The “Best Advocate/Final Rounds” award and the “Best Advocate/Preliminary Rounds” award both went to Derrick Connell from Stetson.

The National Civil Trial Competition is “by invitation only” and was started in 2002 by Loyola Law School Prof. Susan Poehls (www.lls.edu). Since its inception, the NCTC has been sponsored exclusively by the Santa Monica, CA. law firm of Greene Broillet & Wheeler (www.greene-broillet.com).

“The National Civil Trial Competition strives to bring a realistic courtroom environment for the students to experience as we believe that it inspires them to bring their best advocacy skills to the table,” stated Prof. Susan Poehls, “and this year was exceptional. The students’ attention to detail was reflected in the quality of their presentations and in the legal arguments that they made. Although only one team can win, all of these students are winners in my book.”

Prof. Poehls added: “The Los Angeles legal community plays an important role in the success of the NCTC. With local judges and attorneys actively judging the various rounds, their participation imbues the competition with an added level of realism. We appreciate their level of commitment and dedication to the NCTC program.”

[Earth Times]

Some of the country’s top law school students will be on both sides of a mock murder trial about the fatal shooting of a law school dean in his office as the sixth annual University at Buffalo Law School’s national mock trial competition gets under way Friday in the Buffalo City Court building.

Students from 32 law schools in 16 states will be competing in the Buffalo- Niagara National Mock Trial Competition, which has developed into the largest such competition for law school students in the country.

Erie County Judge Thomas P. Franczyk, competition director and co-director of the Trial Advocacy program at UB Law School, said more than 150 local lawyers and judges have volunteered to serve as evaluators at the 73 trials that will be staged during the competition, which will run through Monday.

Franczyk said the scenario for this year’s mock trial case was drafted by Travis Lewin, his former Syracuse Law School trial team coach.

Under Lewin’s scripts, the “defendant” is a law professor who was the rival of the murdered dean for the attentions of a popular law school coed who was at the top of her class but also was carrying on affairs at different times with different professors, the judge said in describing the plot. “You’ve got a dead dean, a femme fatale and a slew of suspects to go around, and Professor Lewis assured me the fact pattern is entirely fictional,” Franczyk said.

[Buffalo News]

The Harvard Law School Trial Advocacy Team took first place at a national competition held in Puerto Rico by triumphing in the six-hour final round.

Only eight teams qualified for the invitation-only event, held between Oct. 31 and Nov. 1. All had won another national competition in recent years.

As in other trial advocacy competitions, team members simulated criminal trials by playing lawyers and witnesses. In two preliminary rounds, HLS beat law schools well-known for their trial advocacy programs. The team went undefeated by winning against Stetson University in the semifinal round, and against Barry University in the final.

The four-member team consisted of second-year law student Nneka I. Ukpai and third-year students Dominique D. Winters, Julian B. Thompson and John C. Quinn, who is a teaching fellow for Historical Study B-61, “The Warren Court and the Pursuit of Justice.”

The team was coached by Harvard Law School Criminal Justice Institute Deputy Director J. Soffiyah Elijah and Clinical Instructor Dehlia I. Umunna.

The team members credited their advisors for helping them win with just four weeks of preparation. “The coaches are beyond unbelievable,” Quinn said. “They were really good at creating this team environment and team atmosphere.”

Thompson said that the team succeeded because the members complemented one another. “Our team has four different people in the courtroom with distinctive styles and talents,” he said.

[Harvard Crimson]

Loyola Law School (www.lls.edu) and Greene Broillet & Wheeler (www.greene-broillet.com) are pleased to announce the law schools selected to compete in the 8th annual National Civil Trial Competition (NCTC) which will be held November 12-14, 2009 in Los Angeles. They include: California Western School of Law, Cumberland School of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, Loyola University Chicago School of Law, University of Maryland School of Law, University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, South Texas College of Law, Stetson University College of Law, Suffolk University Law School, St. Johns University School of Law, Syracuse University College of Law, University of Akron School of Law, University of Alabama School of Law, University of Buffalo Law School, and University of Houston Law Center.

Loyola Law School Prof. Susan Poehls created the NCTC, and the first competition was held in 2002. Since its inception, Greene Broillet & Wheeler has exclusively sponsored the event. By invitation only, the NCTC gives law students an opportunity to develop and display the skills of a successful civil litigator.

Thirty-five law schools vied to participate in the NCTC, considered one of the top-tier law school trial advocacy competitions in the United States. The preliminary elimination rounds will begin on Thursday, November 12 in downtown Los Angeles at the U.S. Federal Courthouse. The semi-final and final rounds will be argued at Loyola on Saturday, November 14. The NCTC is judged by prominent members of the Los Angeles bar; and past judges have included Federal District Court Judge Dickran M. Tevrizian, Jr., Mark Geragos, Walter Lack, Tom Girardi, Thomas Mesereau, and Greene Broillet & Wheeler partners, Browne Greene, Bruce Broillet, Timothy Wheeler, Christine Spagnoli, Mark Quigley, Geoffrey Wells and Scott Carr.

[Market Watch]

The moot court team of Concord Law School of Kaplan University won second place in the Fourth Annual Constance Baker Motley National Moot Court Competition in Constitutional Law on Saturday, June 20. The Concord team—Marjorie Daily and Thomas Fleming—fell to a team from Stanford University to become the first fully online law school to ever win the runner up position
in this competition held during the American Constitution Society’s 2009 Annual Convention in Washington.

“The faculty, administration and students at Concord Law School are extremely proud of the moot court team and their performance in this competition,” said Barry Currier, J.D., President and Dean of Concord Law School. “Concord has been providing working professionals with the flexibility and convenience of a high-quality online legal education for more than 10 years. Their performance here demonstrates the breadth and depth of the legal education we provide and speaks to the quality of our student body.”

[PR-Inside]

The Charleston School of Law announced today that Mark E. Hoch will serve as its first assistant dean for academic success.

Charleston School of Law hires assistant dean In the position, Hoch will help students learn and perform better while in law school, said Dean Andy Abrams. Hoch will start in August.

Since 2002, Hoch has been an assistant professor of professional practice and legal writing at Louisiana State University’s Paul M. Hebert Law Center.

While at LSU, Hoch received national attention for his melding of teaching and technology, especially pioneering the use of digital video annotation software for oral argument feedback.

[Charleston Regional Business Journal]

Results:

1st Place
Stetson University College of Law

2nd Place
Cumberland School of Law – Samford University

Semi-Finalists
University of Maryland School of Law
Baylor University School of Law

Quarter-Finalists
Duke University School of Law
Suffolk University Law School
University of Akron School of Law
Loyola University – Chicago

[AAJ] – pdf
[Yahoo News] – article