The Fordham Law Dispute Resolution Society ABA Arbitration team ended their season this year with an excellent performance at the national competition.
The team, composed of Mackenzie Alpert ’24, Brian Block ’23, Hugh Malesh ‘24, Athena Karavasilis ’24, Alexa Green ’24, Hiren Patel ’24, Marie Kessel ’24, Cameron Posillico ’24, Martha O’Brien ’24, and Darby Sinel ’24, competed at the regional competition held at the University of Northern Kentucky on December 3 against ten other regional teams.
“During the regional rounds, our teams held their own against very strong opponents,” said team coach Phoebe Huth ’23. “It was clear that all their hard work throughout the semester paid off. The judges were very impressed with their performances, and their feedback for our teams was spectacular across all the rounds.”
In the end, the team composed of Alpert, Block, Malesh, and Karavasilis came in second and advanced to the national competition, held at the ABA’s headquarters in Chicago on January 20.
To prepare for nationals, the team did four moots with different arbitrators to hone their presentation skills and learned their material “forwards, backwards, and sideways,” said Huth. Though the team did not proceed to the second day of finals, they had the highest point differential out of all the teams competing that day, Huth said.
“The arbitrators really liked us, or at least enjoyed watching us, and scored us high,” said Huth. “I think that’s a huge accomplishment because [the team]really played to the scoring methods of the arbitrators and put on a great case and clearly performed extremely well.”
Last year, Huth competed at the same competition, coming in second place at the national level, an experience that she said she thoroughly enjoyed.
“It was really intense but we had such a great time. That definitely motivated me to continue the experience and pass on what I’ve learned over the years,” Huth said. “I’m really happy I did, because I’ve absolutely loved coaching, and this team that I’ve been working with this past semester has been such a joy to work with.”