Thirty-two teams from across the country arrived in Washington, D.C. at the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse on February 27, all prepared to present oral arguments in the National Appellate Advocacy Competition (NAAC) regional. Two Marquette Law teams were among those and both made their presence known.

Darrin Pribbernow, Jake Rozema, and Christin Saint Pierre were seeded 3rd after three rounds of argument. They advanced to the fourth (regional semifinal) round but faced a tough bench. They lost that fourth round to a team that ultimately would advance to nationals. In one round, Saint Pierre received a perfect 100 score from one of the judges. Their team’s brief was named fifth best in the region.

Charlie Bowen, Julie Leary, and Alex Sterling were seeded 7th after three rounds, but they, too, faced a tough bench in the fourth round, making some tough arguments for the respondent’s side. Unfortunately, they, too, lost that round to a team that would advance to nationals. Leary also earned a perfect 100 score from one of the judges. But she so expertly argued every round that she earned ninth best oralist in the region. The last time Marquette had someone earn a top-ten oralist accolade was in 2016 in the Brooklyn regional. (That honor went to Dan Murphy (‘16).)

Both teams were coached by Attorneys Elleny Christopoulos, Caitlin Lynch, Kate Maternowski, and Zachary Willenbrink (L’11). Thank you, too, to practice judges Professor Rebecca Blemberg; Judge J.P. Stadtmueller (L’67), United States Attorney Kevin Knight, and federal law clerk Nathan Bader; City of Milwaukee attorneys Jim Carroll (L’08), Miriam Horwitz, and Tyrone St. Junior (L’10); Godfrey & Kahn attorneys Nina Beck, Maggie Cook, and Andy Gordon (L’14); and former NAAC competitors Lucas Bennewitz (L’15), Dan Murphy (L’16), Cassie Van Gompel (L’16), Barry Braatz (L’17), Andrew Lawton (L’18), and Adam Woodside (L’18).

Congratulations to team members for their outstanding representation of Marquette Law.