You have, I'm sure, heard the chill winds blowing through the dusty streets of the Mootness blog. Noted the tumbleweeds rolling by. Heard the cockroaches scurry over the floorboards of a place where good people once laughed and loved. Seen the spam comments pile up, then cease, because even the spammers can't stand the loneliness. If you were one of the hardy, maybe you even set up camp and just ... waited. Until the silence cloaked you like a death shroud. And even the zombies got bored & hungry and shuffled off in search of fresher brains. So you gave up, tired of seeing Mootness repeat an apparently unanswerable question to Michigan peeps month after month. Tired of seeing the world's deadest live blog post about how some school called Chicago-Kent won some thing called the National Moot Court Competition. (But is the news itself really dead? Really?) 

Yeah, well: we had some good times. At the height of its powers, Mootness enjoyed a loyal readership of, like, five people. I wish I could thank all of you personally, but my dinner table only seats four, and some of my plates are chipped.

But the place to go for steaming fresh advocacy results (and spicier commentary than the cautious guy behind Mootness ever offered) is Professor Rob Sherwin's Bench Brief blog. Professor Sherwin's updates come fast and furious from the heart of Texas, or maybe the left shoulder of Texas. His commitment to the sport of mooting and mocking -- and, more importantly, to the training of advocates -- is inspiring. Perhaps most importantly, he has rapidly internalized an eternal truth: it is impossible to report on law school advocacy results without injecting cheesy jokes and funky puns into the mix. That's a compliment. If you can't laugh about moot court, then you can't laugh about ... I dunno, nuns falling down flights of stairs or something. Anyway: read Professor Sherwin's blog. Funnier than nuns falling down stairs. And at least as enlightening.

Another place for results is The Ranker's scoreboard and blog. Whether you love The Ranker and The Rankings of the Ranker or prefer the position of those Rankled by The Ranker's Rankings or wonder whether the frappuccino is worth the froth, he appears to have a good network of sources and posts competition results rather quickly.

I will still be around, teaching my students and doing what I can to help make a community out of those of us that care about the weird and wonderful world of competitive law school advocacy.

Amy Delauter, Jason Sexton, and Andrew Sutter of Florida Coastal College of Law won the 2007 Chicago Bar Association Moot Court Competition this November in a large city in Illinois. Finishing in second place were Brian Fahy, Jeff Hassler, and Amanda Main from Pepperdine University School of Law. Florida Coastal has become a fixture in the final round of the CBA Competition: FloCo teams won in 2005 and finished second to Chicago-Kent in 2004.

Competition semifinalists Christopher Chan, Alyssa Gunther, and Lub Reife of defending champ New York Law School won the Best Brief award. Best Oralist honors went to Michael Ensminger of the mighty George Mason School of Law.

Also advancing to the semifinals were Vanessa Burgess, Sara Thornton, and Aaron Vickery of Texas Tech University School of Law.

Honors for second- and third-best brief went to Florida Coastal's Tim Moss, Lisa DeLong, and Stephanie Lew and [School-That-Cannot-Be-Named-Right-Now]'s James Block and Cathleen Dettman. The awards for second- and third best oralist went to Matthew Olson of [Insert School Here] and Jigar Desai of Chicago-Kent College of Law.

Florida Coastal discusses the result on its moot court society's home page. Texas Tech discusses it here.

I'll fill in the missing law school information when I can.

Ashleigh Kingery, Richard Wenner, and Heath Sabin of Regent University School of Law won the Fourteenth Annual Burton D. Wechler First Amendment Moot Court Competition, sponsored by the Moot Court Honor Society of American University Washington College of Law. Also advancing to the final round were Julia Romano, Linet Bidrossian, and Nick Francescon of Southwestern Law School; a team from Southwestern won the 2006 competition, which has moved from the spring to the fall.

A team from South Texas College of Law won the Best Brief award. Best Oralist honors went to Scott Jones of the University of Richmond School of Law.

The semifinalist teams were from South Texas and Florida International University College of Law. Second- and third-place brief awards went to the Southwestern team and a squad from University of Oklahoma College of Law. Second- and third-place oralist honors went to Sandra Trujillo of Florida International and Mr. Wenner of Regent University.

American University has posted the results, photos, and a webcast of the final round on the competition's web page (link at the top of the page or, for the ultimate in convenience, right here). Regent University's report is here. Southwestern's is here.

Rachel Adamczyk and Toni Odette of Chicago-Kent College of Law won the Fall 2007 Midwest Moot Court Competition, sponsored by the Illinois Appellate Lawyers Association. They squared off in the final round against classmates Margaret Battersby and Michael Ko. The finals were held in the Chicago courtroom of the Illinois Supreme Court.

Ms. Adamczyk and Ms. Odette swept the other competition awards: the team received the trophy for Best Brief, and Ms. Adamczyk was honored for presenting the Best Oral Argument in the final round.

Also reaching the semifinals were two teams from the University of Illinois College of Law: Colin Delany & Omar Jafri and Michael Halpin & Katrina Hochstetler. Mr. Jafri was recognized as the top-scoring speaker in the semifinal round. Ms. Battersby of Chicago-Kent was the top-scoring advocate in the preliminary rounds.

This is the second consecutive win for Chicago-Kent in the Midwest Competition -- and the second in 2007, a feat made possible by the competition's move this year from the spring to the fall.

Devin Huggins and Alex Bell of Baylor Law School won the Mack Kidd Administrative Law Moot Court Competition in Austin in October. Also reaching the final round were Daniel Werlinger, Maureen Semple-Hirsh, and Billy Davis from South Texas College of Law. Sixteen teams from Texas law schools participated in the tournament, which is sponsored by the Administrative Law Section of the State Bar of Texas.

Wade Glover, Shatorree Bates, and Jonathon Clark of Texas Tech University School of Law won the Best Brief Award. Mr. Huggins of Baylor was honored as the tournament's top advocate; Joel Bailey, who was a second Baylor team, was honored as the competition's second-best advocate.

Yet another Baylor team, Rob George and Lane Haygood, advanced to the semifinals. I presume another team did as well, and I'd bet it's from Texas, though I'll be danged if I know who it is. 

Success in this tournament (and competitive advocacy in general) is nothing new for Baylor's students. The school swept the top two spots in last year's admin law competition, and it has won the ten year-old tournament five times. One of the team's coaches, Professor Ron Beal, literally wrote the book on Texas administrative practice and procedure.

More details are in Baylor's press release; Texas Tech offers this report about the best brief award.

Whitney Baran, Clarene Dobronski, and Nicholas Lane of Michigan State University College of Law held off a Texas flood and won the Pepperdine National Entertainment Law Moot earlier this month in Malibu. They prevailed in the final round over Brittany Lannen, Evan Flournoy, and Patrick Cannon of Texas Wesleyan School of Law. The Spartans have an impressive record in the Pepperdine Competition (and in moot court in general).

The Michigan State team also won the award for Best Petitioner's Brief. The award for Best Respondent's Brief went to a team from Southwestern Law School. The Best Advocate Award went to Chris Cassidy of University of California Hastings College of Law. Ms. Baran of Michigan State was honored as the best advocate in the final round.

Two more Texas schools, South Texas College of Law and Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University, rounded out the final four and shared most of the competition awards with Michigan State and Texas Wesleyan. The awards for second and third-best Petitioner's briefs went to Texas Wesleyan and South Texas; SMU's team wrote the second-best Respondent's Brief. The award for third-best Respondent's brief went to student from Seton Hall School of Law. John Kane of SMU was honored as the second-place advocate. Ms. Baran of Michigan State finished third.

Pepperdine's press release announcing the results is here; the full results are posted here. Texas Wesleyan's report is here. Southwestern reports its team's brief award here (scroll down).

If there is any official policy here at Mootness, it is that we have a soft spot in our hearts for the Manfred Lachs Space Law Moot. I have several theories as to why this is, but the leading one at the moment is this: The hardware. The Lachs Trophy. It is an awesome thing. I think it reminds me of women I wished I dated in college: it is beautiful, complicated, maybe a little nuts, all beguilingly sharp edges and dangerous curves. Click the thumbnail and look at the full-sized photo. And try to resist its power. I dare you.

So right now, the trophy is in the hands of the George Washington University Law School for the third time. David (D.J.) Western and Magin Puig Monsen earned it by winning the North American regional tournament last spring (sweeping the brief and oralist awards in the process) and then winning the world championship in Hyerabad, India in September. The world championship round pitted the GWU students against advocates from European regional champion Leiden University (the Netherlands) and Asia-Pacific regional champions the University of Queensland (Australia). There will be no interplanetary round. Those angry little frozen critters on the no-longer-a-planet Pluto thingee ain't getting their grubby tendrils on the Lachs Trophy.

The Queensland team won the Eileen Galloway Award for Best Brief. Rola Lin of Queensland won the Sterns & Tennen Award for Best Oralist.

GWU's report is here. A write-up in the fascinating Space Law Probe blog is here. Mootness reports on GWU's 2005 galactic championship are here and here.

Here's an exciting development: the Blakely Advocacy Institute at the University of Houston Law Center has announced that it will host the Moot Court National Championship in January 2009.

It'll work like this: programs will earn earn points through strong performances in major moot court tournaments throughout the United States. Details of the process are being finalized. The top 16 programs will convene in Houston for a genuine Texas shootout in what promises to be a memorable tournament of champions.

I will post more information as I receive it.

Kudos to the folks at UHLC for putting this together. In the trial ad world, the NITA Tournament of Champions has done wonderful things to put outstanding students and programs on display, as well as to tighten the community. A moot court analogue is a welcome, welcome thing.