The Bench Brief

Chicago-Kent "lawyers up" at Illinois ALA competition

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:51:00 +0000

Chicago-Kent College of Law at the Illinois Institute of Technology took home most of the loot at this weekend's Illinois Appellate Lawyers Moot Court Competition, narrowly edging my Texas Tech University School of Law team for the championship (the final round was separated by a mere 2/3 of a point). University of Houston Law Center and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University were the semifinalists at the 16-team tournament.

Chicago-Kent won Best Brief, and its own Jocelyn Floyd won Best Overall Oralist. Robin O'Neill of Houston was the top oralist of the preliminary rounds.

Alabama rolls over competition at National Trial Advocacy Competition

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:00:00 +0000

The University of Alabama School of Law won the 10th Annual National Trial Advocacy Competition, held October 8-11 at the Michigan State University College of Law. The University of Houston Law Center finished second at the 26-team tournament. Georgetown University Law Center and Fordham University School of Law at the Jesuit University of New York were the semifinalists.

Sam Nicholson of Georgia State University College of Law took home Best Advocate honors. The Best Opening Statement award went to Aida Wondwessen of Southern Methodist University's Dedman School of Law, while Best Closing Argument was awarded to Deborah Wassel of Fordham. Daniel Michaelson of Brooklyn Law School won Best Direct Examination; Justina Lopez of Fordham won Best Cross Examination. The University of Denver College of Law on the Professional Ethics Award.

Georgia State has a write up here.

South Texas exercises free speech rights at Wechsler First Amendment competition

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:55:00 +0000

South Texas College of Law claimed its 102d (is that correct Blue Book form???) national championship over the weekend of October 23-24, besting 31 other teams at the 16th Annual Burton D. Wechsler First Amendment Moot Court Competition. University of San Diego School of Law finished second, while Cleveland State University Cleveland-Marshall College of Law and the University of Wisconsin Law School enjoyed semifinalist finishes. The competition is hosted by American University's Washington College of Law.

Best Brief honors went to the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University. Craig Tuttle of Cleveland-Marshall was named Best Oralist.

Here are the full results. South Texas's well-deserved horn-tooting is here, with San Diego's here.

C-SPAN's Supreme Court Week videos

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0000

If you missed any (or all) of C-SPAN's "Supreme Court" week programing earlier this month, fret not: You can watch the programs on C-SPAN's website.

Of particular interest to you advocacy professors will be the October 8 program titled "Attorneys Who Have Argued Before the Court," where several lawyers talk about the experience of preparing for and arguing before the Court.

Also check out the October 6 episode, "Clerk of the Supreme Court William Suter." Simply put, General Suter is a national treasure. I had the pleasure of meeting him several years ago when the Fort Worth Federal Bar Association brought him in to speak and swear our members in to the Supreme Court Bar. At that meeting, he pleaded with us that if we were ever in Washington, to call him several weeks before so he could arrange a personal tour of the Supreme Court building. Sure enough, about a year later, my wife and I were going to D.C. to visit my sister. I called General Suter, who not only happily delivered on his promise, but also expedited my wife's application to the Supreme Court Bar so that I could move her admission before the full Court. Although I'll likely never argue an actual case before the Supreme Court, I can at least say that I've put both hands on the rostrum, looked the Chief Justice in the eye, and delivered those immortal words, "Mr. Chief Justice and May it Please the Court."

And I have General Suter to thank for that experience of a lifetime. He's an amazing human being with an indescribable love for the Court and its building.

Justice Thomas doesn't like oral argument

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I posted about how, if early indications proved true, the addition of Justice Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court could result in more questions being asked during oral argument. But Justice Clarence Thomas doesn't like that possibility one bit. During a speech at the University of Alabama School of Law, Thomas apparently criticized his brethren (although none by name) for blabbing too much during lawyers' "time before the court" (there's a subtle shout-out to my friends at South Texas College of Law).

Saying that most judges make up their minds about a case by reading the parties' briefs beforehand, Thomas said, "[s]o why do you beat up on people if you already know? I don't know, because I don't beat up on 'em. I refuse to participate. I don't like it, so I don't do it."

The notoriously quiet Thomas also denied that the justices could effectively use oral argument as a means to sway each other. "All nine of us are in the same building," he said. "If we want to sway each other we know where we are. We don't need oral arguments to do that. It doesn't make any sense to me."

Bad Advocacy - Vol. 2

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0000

The second entry in our continuing "Bad Advocacy" series belongs to lawyer Orly Taitz (whose, name, when I look at it quickly, always appears to me as "Taly Ortiz" until I focus on it for a few seconds). Ms. Taitz is a so-called "birther," or one who doubts that Barack Obama is a natural-born citizen of United States. If you're a fan of law books and the Constitution swathed in a wavy American flag, click here to check out "Dr." (she's apparently also a dentist, but I'm no anti-dentite) Taitz's website.

Taitz has filed at least three different lawsuits on behalf of U.S. servicemen and servicewomen challenging their deployment orders to Afghanistan and Iraq. Her argument, in essence, is that the deployment orders are invalid, having been issued by a man who is not constitutionally qualified to occupy the Commander-in-Chief role.

These cases caught my eye several months ago given their relationship to this past year's ABA National Appellate Advocacy Competition problem. That (fake) set of facts involved a challenge by United States congressmen to the President's blatant disregard of a statute directing him to withdraw all troops from the Iraq-like "West Baltizstan." The first issue in the case was whether the congressmen even had standing to bring the suit, and one of the questions that invariably came up in oral argument was whether the suit would have been better brought by a solider with deployment orders.

Any-who, Taitz's advocacy skills wore thin on United States District Judge Clay Land, who, on October 13, sanctioned Taitz to the tune of $20,000. The opinion is a must-read, but this was my favorite part, especially from an oral-argument standpoint:

In the midst of a jury trial of another case, the Court nevertheless rearranged its schedule, along with the schedules of jurors and other attorneys, so that Captain Rhodes’s matter could be heard during an extended lunch break. ... Instead of arguing pertinent legal authority supporting her position, counsel reverted to “press conference mode,” repeating political “talking points” that did not answer the Court’s questions or address the Court’s concerns. Specifically, counsel was unable to explain why this Court should not abstain from deciding this case based upon well-established precedent, and she was unable to articulate clearly how the alleged cloud” on the President’s place of birth amounted to a violation of her client’s individual constitutional rights. Rather than address these two important questions, counsel retreated to her political rhetoric. When the Court admonished her for not addressing the legal issues presented by her Complaint, counsel accused the Court of unfairly badgering her and implored the Court to ask Defendants’ counsel questions instead of her. Ms. Taitz’s performance confirmed to the Court that her focus was not to pursue a legitimate legal cause of action to obtain relief for her client but was to use the Court to force the President to produce a “birth certificate” satisfactory to her and her followers. Her other purpose appeared to be to use litigation as a means of drawing attention to her political agenda. During the hearing, Plaintiff’s counsel threatened that if she did not get the opportunity to obtain the relief she sought (discovery of a birth certificate), then a wave of subsequent similar actions would be filed in this Court until she obtained what she wanted.

Yeah, that's good strategy. I may impart that on my students. "OK -- if you don't know the answer to a judge's question, go 'Taitz' on him: Accuse him of badgering you, tell him to ask questions of the other side instead, and then threaten to bury the court's docket in further frivolous filings if he doesn't let you argue what YOU want to. That ought to win you some points."

Fordham outguns Faulkner at Lone Star mock trial showdown

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:58:00 +0000

Fordham University School of Law was named champion at the Lone Star Classic mock trial competition held October 15-17 at St. Mary's University School of Law. Faulkner University Thomas Goode Jones School of Law finished second at the 16-team tournament, while Villanova University School of Law (last year's champ) and Texas Wesleyan University School of Law were semifinalists.

Faulkner has a website write up here. Texas Wesleyan has one here. The final round can be viewed on St. Mary's website here.

Practicing law? There's an app for that...

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:56:00 +0000

If you're like me and have an ongoing love affair with your iPhone, check out Jonathan Frieden's E-Commerce Law Blog post today, titled "A Dozen iPhone Apps for Lawyers." There's one in particular I recommend for you advocacy coaches out there: TripIt (actually, you can use TripIt whether you have an iPhone or not, but the app is pretty cool). The website provides a really easy (and totally free) way to prepare itineraries for trips. As I book travel arrangements for my teams and receive e-mail confirmations from airlines and hotels, I simply forward those e-mails to TripIt, which recognizes my e-mail address and then plugs the info into custom itineraries. I then manually add specific information about the competition (round times and locations, etc.) and give the itinerary to my students in one handy-dandy document that contains everything they need to know about the upcoming trip.

Feel free to share (via Comments) any apps or websites you've found helpful in the advocacy arena...

Supreme Court gets hotter

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0000

I'm not talking about aesthetics, although the thought of John Paul Stevens in a Speedo just gave me the giggles (others of you probably had a different reaction to that mental image). No, I'm talking about the amount and degree of questioning from the bench -- you know, "hot bench" versus "cold bench"; lots of questioning versus little or none at all.

If First Monday was any indication, the addition of Sonia Sotomayor makes the high court a little livelier. As the ABA Journal points out, the newest Supreme didn't waste any time jumping into the fray. She even asked more questions than Antonin Scalia in the first hour.

I was reminded of myself when I got to this part of the story:

Sotomayor’s questions sounded as if they were formulated by a prosecutor or trial lawyer, according to the NLJ story. She made declarative statements about some aspect of the case, and then asked, “Correct?”

I've gotten better in that regard when judging practice rounds or competitions, but I still have an unfortunate Sam Donaldson-esque tendency to just bark out a declaration, often prompting the student to look at me with a "I'm sorry, was there a question in there?" face.

Regent tops at National Pretrial Competition

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:37:00 +0000

Regent University School of Law won the second annual National Pretrial Competition this past weekend. The eight-team competition, which is co-sponsored by Stetson University College of Law's Center for Excellence in Advocacy and the Florida Bar's Young Lawyers Division, is sort of a mix of moot court and mock trial. Teams file briefs on a pre-trial motion and then argue the motion orally at an evidentiary hearing. Chicago-Kent College of Law finished second, Louisiana State University Paul M. Hebert Law Center (last year's champ) took third, and Atlanta's John Marshall Law School came in fourth place.

Regent also won Best Brief, while its own Jerry Harris claimed the Best Final Round Advocate award.

Regent's website write up is here; LSU's is here. Stetson's summary is here.

Stetson dishes the 411 at Marshall

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:00:00 +0000

Stetson University College of Law claimed the top prize at this past weekend's John Marshall Law School International Moot Court Competition in Information Technology and Privacy Law. Loyola University New Orleans College of Law finished second at the 26-team competition. Northern Illinois University College of Law and Michigan State University College of Law were the semifinalists, while the University of Pretoria Faculty of Law (South Africa) bested Gujarat National Law University (India) in the vague and perpetually unexplained Ambassador Round. This marks the second-straight Ambassador Cup for Pretoria.

Loyola New Orleans won the Best Petitioner's Brief trophy; South Texas College of Law won the corresponding Respondent's Brief award. M. Colby Gunnels (whose incredibly awesome name must have been ripped straight out of a Chip Hilton book) of Texas Wesleyan University School of Law won Best Oralist.

Full results, including competition pictures, are here. For those who want more specifics, scores are here.

Strategies for Coaching Moot Court Teams webinar

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:43:00 +0000

I had meant to post this a few weeks back, but it somehow fell through The Bench Brief's otherwise impenetrable cracks. This Wednesday (October 7) at 3 p.m. EST, Stetson University College of Law's Project for Excellence in Legal Communication is hosting a web-based seminar titled "Strategies for Coaching Moot Court Teams" as part of its Virtual Legal Writing Conference. The webinar, moderated by Stetson's Stephanie Vaughan, will feature Stetson's Michael Allen, Colleen Barger from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law, and the great Mary Beth Beazley (whose excellent "A Practical Guide to Appellate Advocacy" I use to teach my Appellate Advocacy course) of THE Ohio State University Michael E. Moritz College of Law.

The program's description:

Many legal writing faculty, as part of their law school service, coach moot court teams. But, success does not come easy in the world of competitive oral advocacy. This session features successful moot court coaches sharing their strategies for preparing law students for moot court success.

The show is free for all law school faculty. An ".edu" e-mail address is necessary to register. If you're interested, conctact Kirsten Davis at kkdavis@law.stetson.edu to register.

Texas Tech takes NLLSA crown

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0000

Texas Tech University School of Law won the second annual National Latino/a Law Student Association Moot Court Competition, held September 24-25 in Chicago at NLLSA's yearly convention. Columbia Law School finished second at the 12-team tournament. Yale Law School was credited as the third-place team; a second team from Columbia was the other semi-finalist.

Texas Tech also won the Best Petitioner's Brief award, with Chicago-Kent College of Law claiming the Best Respondent's Brief. Andrea Contreras of Columbia's semi-finalist team took home the plaque for Best Oralist of the preliminary rounds, and Sam Webb of Texas Tech won Best Oralist of the Final Round.

No definitive word yet on the location of NLSSA's conference next year, but sources tell me it's between New Haven, Connecticut and Austin, Texas.

When mooters go bad

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:00:00 +0000

Above the Law has an amusing post today about what sounds like the most fun advocacy contest in the country: University of Virgina School of Law's intraschool William Lile Minor Moot Court Competition.

The substance of the post is really rather silly; it's essentially a bunch of whining about how the 3Ls at UVA are taking their competition too seriously.

But what I really liked (and laughed out loud at) was the intro:

I’ll admit, I did not participate in any kind of ~~fake court~~ moot court competitions during law school. It just wasn’t my thing. But for other students, moot court can be a really exciting way to pass the time while you are waiting for law school to stop charging you money. I totally respect that.

I may adopt that as the official tag line of The Bench Brief: "A weblog dedicated to the wide world of really exciting ways to to pass the time while you are waiting for law school to stop charging you money."

Learning advocacy skills from Obama

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:06:00 +0000

I've always wondered whether President Obama was a good "mooter" in law school. There's no question he's a brilliant orator, but frankly, I wasn't terribly impressed with his debating skills during the campaign. I always thought he came out on top, but let's shoot straight -- it's not as if John McCain was the second coming of Stephen A. Douglas. Heck, I don't even think you could say McCain's debate skills qualified him as the second coming of Stephen A. Smith. But I digress...

Regardless of his mooting abilities, law school advocates (and actual lawyers, for that matter) can learn a thing or two from watching this President speak. Check out this blog post, which extols the virtues of the all-important pause, used brilliantly by Obama the other night in his speech to Congress.

And yes, I've been waiting a very long time to find the right opportunity to link to the brilliant but-now-defunct Fire Joe Morgan blog. Miss those guys...

Thanks to fellow TechLaw prof Jennifer Horn for the tip...

How funny is your favorite SCOTUS justice?

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:28:00 +0000

Stats are here (via Above The Law). Not surprisingly, Scalia is the funniest, with Breyer running second (and apparently getting funnier as his years on the bench roll on). Justice Thomas isn't funny at all, but I guess it's hard to get laughs when you don't speak.

Stetson seriously works it at first competition of year

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:16:00 +0000

The fall competition season has officially begun. Two teams from Stetson University College of Law finished first and second at the E. Earle Zehmer Workers' Compensation Moot Court Competition, hosted by the Florida Workers' Compensation Institute. Florida Coastal School of Law and Florida State University College of Law were semi-finalists at the 14-team tournament, which took place in Orlando August 16-17. Although the competition is in its twentieth year, this is is the first time it was open to non-Florida law schools.

Florida Coastal took top brief honors. The Best Advocate Award was a tie between Jeremy Paul from Florida Coastal and Wilbert Vancol of Florida A&M University College of Law.

Stetson has a website write-up here.

Tip of the hat to Todd Bruno at LSU for bringing this competition to my attention.

Don't quote me on that

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:52:00 +0000

I've been saving this one for awhile, but I thought it would be a good post given that I used quotation marks of questionable necessity in a headline a few days ago.

Anyway, click here to check out The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks. Genius...

It reminds me of a brief one of my teams wrote for the National Moot Court Competition two years ago. One of the issues was the constitutionality of a fictional firearms statute that was popularly known (in the great state of Old York) as Aidan's Law. My students chose to put quotation marks around "Aidan's Law" (see? I just did it!) every time they referenced the statute. Which, of course, was like every other sentence. The quotations accomplished two things: 1) They made the brief annoying as hell to read; and 2) they made it seem as if "Aidan's Law" (I did it again!!!) was some sort of wink-wink, B.S. statute not to be taken seriously -- not the tact you want to take when you're arguing FOR its constitutionality. The brief didn't score very well, as I recall...

The "one"-minute drill?

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 20:38:00 +0000

Over at SCOTUS Blog they've got an interesting post on the August 18 motion of two amici seeking a mere one minute of oral argument in the upcoming campaign finance case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

I've lost count of the times I've told my students "if you can't persuade the bench of your point in less than a minute, then you won't persuade them at all." But although it may be plenty of time for Nick Cage to swipe your ride, even I would be a little concerned about my ability to convince the Supreme 9 in less than 60 seconds.

Interesting strategy, though, in seeking an audience before the Court.

Bad Advocacy - Vol. 1

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:53:00 +0000

Welcome to a new, recurring post here at The Bench Brief. I can't predict how often it will appear, but I can give it a name. How 'bout "Bad Advocacy"? In it, I'll detail particular cases from the real world that should serve as examples of what not to do, even in the world of "fake" mock or moot advocacy. Thanks to Above the Law for our first entry.

On August 11, United States District Judge Leonard Davis (E.D. Tex., Tyler Division) issued his Memorandum Opinion and Order in the case of i4i v. Microsoft. The big news from from that decision was the accompanying Permanent Injunction that ordered Microsoft to cease selling some versions of its popular Word software program. But this being a law school advocacy blog, let's ignore that part of the case and focus on pages 42-43 of the Order, where Judge Davis discusses his reasoning behind awarding an additional $40 million in enhancement damages against Microsoft.

During voir dire, Microsoft attorney Matt Powers, a partner with the BigLaw firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges, asked jurors what they thought about companies suing not to protect a patented product, but rather just to win money. Davis had counsel approach the bench, during which the following exchange followed:

THE COURT: I understand that you just told the jury if somebody was using the patent not to compete, that that was the wrong way to use the patent?
MR. POWERS: No, not to compete; just to get money, not to protect anything. That's what I asked.
THE COURT: What about protecting the patent?
MR. POWERS: I'll ask it that way again.
THE COURT: I just -- you know, I think you're sort of misstating the law, and I don't want to embarrass you in front of the jury. But I would appreciate it if you would clean that up.
MR. POWERS: I appreciate that. I will do that.

Alas, at least according to the Court, Powers did not "clean that up." Davis wrote that "Microsoft’s trial counsel continued to misstate the law and directly appeal to the jurors’ perceived prejudices," telling the jury during opening that “we’re here because the bankers decided to achieve liquidity” and that “the banker cases are the ones where you don’t have a very successful product, and the bankers decide to try to get their money out another way.” Despite an instruction to the jury that there should be no distinction between "classes" of patent owners, Microsoft charged ahead with its "bailout" theme during closing, arguing:

[i4i] had a product that failed. They had a patent that doesn’t work. They’re asking for a bail-out. President Tyler [sic] didn’t give bankers a bail-out. We would ask for you not to give one here either.

You don't rise to be the co-chair of Weil Gotshal's 500-person litigation section by being a shady lawyer. And as Above the Law points out, he's "kind of a big deal" among IP attorneys. But this is a good example of how even a well-respected, experienced attorney can go a bit too far in making his case.

South Texas scrivenors win Scribes

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:19:00 +0000

In the "two-month-old news" category, South Texas College of Law won the ultra-prestigious 2008-09 Scribes Brief Writing Award. The award, which is given annually by the American Society of Legal Writers, ostensibly recognizes the best brief in the nation from the previous academic year. Any school winning a first-place brief award at any interschool moot court competition -- regional or national -- can enter that brief in the Scribes competition, and the selection committee then chooses the best brief from all the entries. Sort of a "best of the best"-concept. A "Top Gun" trophy, if you will.

The first-place prize went to the trio of Bridget Burke, Sephanie Holcombe, and Justin Jenson for the brief they entered in the University of Houston Law Center's Moot Court National Championship tournament (Ms. Burke and Ms. Holcombe were also members of the South Texas team that won the ABA National Appellate Advocacy Competition, where Ms. Burke notched National Best Advocate honors).

Impressively, South Texas also took the second-place Scribes plaque for a brief one its teams entered in the August A. Rendigs, Jr. National Products Liability Moot Court Competition. Third place went to UC Davis King Hall School of Law for its for its first-place brief at the San Francisco regional of the NAAC.

Welcome back (insert "Welcome Back, Kotter" theme music here)

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:52:00 +0000

Not sure whether the post headline is directed toward you or me, but in any event, I figure it's time to fire back up ye old Bench Brief, what with the fall semester upon us and all...

I'm really looking forward to another exciting year of covering the "wide world of law school advocacy." This being the second year of The Bench Brief's existence, I hope I can build on the dedicated readership we attracted last year.

If you haven't already done so, go ahead and subscribe so you don't need to manually check back for new posts. I offer two totally free options: On the left side of this page, you'll see two links -- one that says "Subscribe in a reader," and one below it that says "Receive new posts via e-mail." If you're like me and follow lots of blogs, you probably already use an RSS feed reader and don't need me to tell you how to add The Bench Brief to your feeds. If the last sentence made your eyes roll back into your head and drool is now running down your chin, perhaps the e-mail option is better. Just type your e-mail address into the handy-dandy box, and the magical god (or gods, if you're polytheistic) of the interwebs will e-mail you new posts daily. It's just that easy. Promise.

But if -- for reasons of spite or otherwise -- you want to do neither, please do check back often. What else will you talk about at cocktail parties if you're behind on the latest moot court/mock scoop? Umm, acutally, no need to answer that.

Full results for Jessup international rounds posted

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 20:23:00 +0000

Here are the results of the international rounds of the 50th Annual Phillip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, which took place in Washington, D.C. March 22-28. American law schools didn't give a particularly great showing; only Columbia Law School made it as far as the octafinals before losing to Universidad Catolica Andres Bello from Venezuela.

But there was one bright spot for the U.S.: Suyash Paliwal of Columbia won Best Oralist of the Preliminary Rounds.

Although I have results from some of the the six U.S. Super Regional rounds, I don't have them all. If I'm able to collect complete information, I'll post here...

Full NAAC results up

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:38:00 +0000

The ABA has posted complete results of the National Appellate Advocacy Competition, so now you may finally quench your thirst for knowledge as to who was the seventh-best advocate at the St. Louis regional (if you must know, it was Clayton Rushing Tartt of Faulkner University Thomas Goode Jones School of Law, who happened to knock my team out in the national quarterfinals).

The national results made a bit more sense this year than last, although it's worth noting that the National Best Advocate (Bridget Burke of South Texas College of Law, who won with an astounding 97 speaker average) didn't even place in the top 10 of advocates at her Washington, D.C. regional. Otherwise, however, the second-through-fifth-place National Best Advocates all won speaker awards at their respective regionals. And my team's National Best Brief had placed third in its region, while the top two briefs in that region didn't make the trip to Chicago.

As I expected, the competition was incredibly well run, both regionally (we were in Miami) and nationally. The new rule change -- which provides that elimination rounds are decided by the team that wins a majority of ballots (as opposed to which team scored more points) -- actually cost my team: In the quarterfinal round against Faulkner, we won by a total of two points but lost the ballot count 2-1. I supported and still do support the new rule, but it makes losing a bit harder to swallow...

And the level of competition, I must say, was higher than I've ever seen it. Having two teams there, I was able to see parts of four preliminary rounds and two break rounds. I can truthfully say that every team we faced had the ability to win it all, and the margins of victory/defeat were razor thin. Which is how it should be, of course. But it reaffirms my belief -- particularly after taking a team to the Gibbons competition the week before and seeing eventual champion Albany argue -- that schools send their very best teams to the NAAC and National Moot Court Competition, and winning either of those two tournaments is far more difficult than winning one of the 60-or-so other competitions that take place over the course of the year.

One last thing: If you have any suggestions as to rule changes for the NAAC, this would be a good place to discuss them (some of the NAAC subcommittee members told me they're readers).

Here's one to get the ball rolling: Instead of holding a coin flip to decide which team chooses its side in the break rounds, why not simply allow the higher-seeded team to select its side? Because here's the problem: Given the elimination of the brief score from the break rounds, having a higher seed at NAAC carries no real advantage. My team was the #1 seed coming out of the preliminary rounds, but that was only so because our brief score was monstrous. We lost to #9 Faulkner -- an awesome team orally -- in the quarters. Eventual champion South Texas was the #15 seed. Last year, the final round match up was #5 Harvard Law School against #7 University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law. The purpose of seeding is (or at least should be) to protect the higher-ranked teams. As it's currently set up, the higher seeds have zero advantage, and there's no incentive to capture a top seed -- it means absolutely nothing.

Incidentally, my proposal would not have made a difference for my team at NAAC -- we actually won both our coin flips and chose the side we wanted. But it just strikes me as odd that the only real advantage for the higher seed is the ability to "call" the coin flip, which, of course, isn't an advantage at all, given that a coin flip is a 50/50 proposition. The "caller" is in no better a position than the non-caller.

The "higher seed chooses" is the rule we use at the Texas state moot court competition. I've always thought it worked well -- it means teams aren't just competing for one of the four elimination round slots, but are also competing for seeding. Because if you're #1, you know you don't have to switch sides at a moment's notice for the next round.

Anyone agree or disagree? Comment below...

Stetson wins AAJ trial competition

robert.sherwin@ttu.edu (Robert T. Sherwin) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:32:00 +0000

Stetson University College of Law won the second of the "Big Three" law school mock trial competitions last weekend, beating Samford University Cumberland School of Law in the final round of the national finals of the AAJ Student Trial Advocacy Competition. The University of Maryland School of Law and Baylor University Law School were the semifinalists.

The STAC final rounds took place in West Palm Beach, featuring the 14 regional championship teams from across the country (in March, I mistakenly reported that both the regional champs and runners up got bids to Florida). The competition started with 248 teams from 147 law schools.

Click here for the AAJ's press release. Here is the post from Stetson's website. And here is Cumberland's.