Fordham Law School placed fourth out of 158 competing teams in the 66th annual National Moot Court Competition, the country’s premier moot court event, held last month at the New York City Bar.
The 3L team consisting of captain Amanda Meinhold, Kimberly R. Greer, and Emily Anne Vance advanced to the national semifinals three months after winning the regional championship. At regionals, the team swept all the major awards: Best Brief, Best Oralist (Greer), and Second Best Oralist (Vance).
A challenging brief writing regimen, twice daily moot preparations, and a strong camaraderie resulted in the team’s success at nationals on February 12, said Professor Maria L. Marcus, moderator for Fordham Law School’s interschool moot court teams and the Joseph M. McLaughlin Professor of Law Emeritus.
“This team was very, very teachable,” Marcus said. “They didn’t mind being together constantly, every day and every weekend, and they kept learning.”
Moot Court is the only Law School student organization that requires brief writing, Marcus said. As a result, team members learn that a good brief tells a well-researched story rather just listing arguments.
“This is a great advantage when team members get litigation-related jobs after graduation, as they have already spent months organizing and writing briefs—a major demand of law firms,” the professor noted.
After writing and filing a brief, the team mooted twice per day for weeks. Each session lasted up to two-and-a-half hours, with Marcus, other professors, Moot Court Board members, alumni, and federal and state judges questioning the team. This process bred not only excellence but versatility, Marcus said.
The competition required teams to present the best argument for each side of a given case on how the Supreme Court should resolve the controversy before them. The two issues involved defining a tipper’s personal benefit and a tippee’s knowledge in insider trading cases and whether exculpatory testimony given in a grand jury proceeding is admissible in a subsequent criminal trial if the witness is unavailable to testify.