Let the (Oral) Argument Begin

Kudos (on getting this far) and best wishes (as we move forward) to the sixteen upper-level students who are competing this week in the quarterfinals of the Jenkins Moot Court Competition. The students earned this right based on their top performance in last fall’s Appellate Writing and Advocacy course, which is a prerequisite or gateway to both the intramural Jenkins Competition and all extramural or interscholastic moot-court competitions. The students are paired into eight teams of two for purposes of the Jenkins Competition:

  • Lindsay Caldwell & Lindsey Johnson
  • Alyssa Dowse & Tim Sheehey
  • Jessica Farley & Brent Simerson
  • Sandy Giernoth & Megann Senfleben
  • Tim Hassel & Joe Brydges
  • Rachel Helmers & Nick Harken
  • Amber Peterson & Allison Ziegler
  • Nicole Standback & Bridget Mueller

Each team writes a brief in the first half of the spring semester and has a chance to argue twice in a round of quarterfinals. Thereupon, based on a weighted scoring of the brief and the oral arguments, four teams advance to the semifinals. The briefs having been “filed” several weeks ago, the oral arguments begin this week, and culminate in the Jenkins Finals at the United States Courthouse at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 2.

More information on the reasons the Law School structures its moot-court competition this way can be found in this article from the Marquette Lawyer or at the moot-court webpage (and a student’s perspective can be found in a very fine post by a guest blogger last month, Jessica Franklin). I hope that all will join me in congratulating and wishing well to this year’s Jenkins competitors.

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My Effort at a Half-Court Shot, or the Importance of a Faculty Blog

Years ago, before I arrived at the Law School in 1997, the annual student-faculty basketball game concluded on a dramatic note. My colleague, Professor Michael McChrystal, was fouled as time expired, with the faculty trailing by 2 points. There being essentially no time left on the clock, the court was cleared as Prof. McChrystal went to the foul line. He calmly sank both foul shots, sending the game into overtime, where the faculty proceeded to win. Prof. McChrystal has had the good sense never to play in the game again. (I once asked his daughter whether she had ever heard the story, and she allowed that it had come up on more than one occasion.)

This past Thursday evening saw this year’s game between the students and the faculty (the latter term being used loosely, as, happily, there are several other personnel who play on the faculty side). I declined the invitation to play, as I have in each instance since arriving in 1997, on a rather straightforward cost-benefit calculus. But I attended, of course, and even suggested to Tonya Turchik and Andy Shiffman, our Student Bar Association leaders, that I would do a half-court shot at half-time.

When half-time came, I took off my suit coat, put on my Opus hard hat (for no real reason, and certainly not, as one colleague suggested, because I feared that the ball would come back down on my head), and went to half-court. Professor Peter Rofes, in handing me the ball, asked which way I wanted to shoot; I suggested the direction in which all the fans (gathered at one end) could best see the whole thing. I would later learn that he and another colleague had a bet on the precise way in which I would miss the shot.

With little fanfare, I took the ball, bounced it several times, and shot it into the air from half-court. What would be the result?

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O’Hear to Chair the Federal Nominating Commission

Since 1979, Wisconsin’s senators have used some form of what they term a “Federal Nominating Commission” to recommend individuals for vacant federal judgeships and U.S. Attorney’s positions. (One can see the current charter from the senators here.) Whether this approach is good public policy is a worthy question, but not my topic here.

Rather, I wish to make an observation concerning leadership of the Federal Nominating Commission: Where there is a vacancy, the charter calls for the dean of the law school in the federal judicial district (Marquette in the Eastern District and the UW-Madison in the Western District) or his designee to chair the commission. I have thus chaired the commission on occasions in the past.

With respect to the current vacancy in the U.S. Attorney’s position in the Eastern District, occasioned by the departure of Steve Biskupic, L’87, for private practice, I this week exercised my option to delegate my responsibilities. This occurs from time to time (e.g., the late Dean Howard B. Eisenberg tapped our colleague, Professor Peter K. Rofes, on one occasion in the 1990s, and a similar thing has occurred on occasion in the Western District).

Specifically, I have turned to my colleague, Michael M. O’Hear, Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Research, and (least relevantly) managing editor of this blog. My principal reason, besides other demands on my attention, is my belief that Professor O’Hear — a leading legal academic in the area of criminal sentencing — is unusually well qualified to help guide this search.

I hope that Professor O’Hear will consider using this blog as one of the means of disseminating information about the Federal Nominating Commission’s important undertakings. In all events, the commission’s recommendation of four to six individuals to serve as the U.S. Attorney in Milwaukee is due to the senators under the charter near the end of March.

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