Marquette Moot Court Team Success at National Criminal Procedure Tournament

Our two moot court teams distinguished themselves at the National Criminal Procedure Tournament this weekend in San Diego. Sarah McNutt was the third place best oralist, and Matthew Hanson was the fourth place best oralist. The team consisting of Kristina Gordon and Sarah McNutt advanced to the top 16. Please congratulate team members Kristina Gordon and Sarah McNutt, advised by Professor Thomas Hammer and coached by Attorney Jennifer Severino, and Matthew Hanson and Erika Motsch, advised by Professor Susan Bay and coached by Attorneys Nick Cerwin and Chad Wozniak. Attorney Severino traveled with the teams. The competition this year included 36 teams.

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An Interview with Professor Jack Kircher

[Editor’s Note: This blog is the third in a series of interviews with faculty and staff at the Law School.]

A member of the Law School faculty since 1970, Professor Kircher teaches torts, insurance, products liability, and seminars in advanced issues on torts. He received the Marquette University Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence in 1986 and the Marquette Law Review Editors’ Award in 1988. In 1993 he received the American Bar Association Tort and Insurance Practice Section’s Robert B. McKay Award for distinction in the teaching of torts and insurance law. Before coming to the Law School, he practiced law and subsequently was Research Director of the Defense Research Institute. He has chaired the Wisconsin Judicial Council and the Wisconsin Supreme Court Board of Bar Examiners. He is coauthor of Punitive Damages: Law and Practice. Professor Kircher is a member of the Editorial Board of the Defense Law Journal, and was Editor of the Federation of Defense & Corporate Counsel Quarterly.

Question:  How did you first become interested in insurance and tort law, and what do you find most intriguing about those areas of law?

My interest in the two subjects started in law school, most probably because they were taught by my favorite professor, Jim Ghiardi. It developed in my first three years after law school due to my work in a defense firm that handled cases in those two areas. It developed further and faster thereafter when Jim asked me to join him as his second-in-command at a legal think tank, the Defense Research Institute, that concentrated its work in those two areas. Also the two subjects are interesting to me because the law constantly changes. In fact, by the time I left the Law School the Wisconsin Supreme Court had changed about 25 percent of what I learned in first-year Torts. I would expect that most of the law I learned in my other courses has remained nearly the same.

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Reading and Briefing Cases Part 2

Reading and briefing cases is an important part of the learning process in law school, as discussed in Part 1 of this blog series. In this blog, various Marquette legal writing faculty discuss some of their favorite tips for effective reading and briefing.

Professor Rebecca Blemberg

When you have finished reading a case, write down the question or questions the court answered. Then fill in the blanks in this sentence: The court held _______________ because ________________. Even if you’re not entirely sure what the court’s reasoning was, make an educated guess. Then consider the following. Was the court explicit in its reasoning? If so, mark or highlight the explicit rationale for the holding. Is the reasoning implicit? If so, mark or highlight the places where you find the court hinting at its rationale. Are you making an educated guess or “reading between the lines” to find the court’s reasoning? If so, make a list of a few reasons for your educated guess. The reasons can be related to the facts of the case, public policy, language choices by the court, the court’s use of authority, etc.

Look up every unfamiliar word you encounter in a case, especially legal terms. Read with access to a law dictionary. Eventually, you will look up terms far less often.

Professor Jacob Carpenter

One piece of advice I would consider is to read a case at least twice, briefing it only after you’ve fully read it at least once. This may not be as necessary for upper-level students, but for 1Ls, I think it is important. Otherwise, if a person briefs a case as she first reads it, the brief often ends up including extraneous facts and dicta that aren’t helpful to the brief. Once the reader finishes reading the case, the reader often has to go back and cross out chunks of information initially included in the brief. And, the brief often ends up being disorganized. This may be less of a problem now that most students brief cases with their laptops instead of by hand. But, I think it is still helpful.

Also, waiting to brief the case until you’ve already read it allows you to focus more on understanding the case itself during the first read, and then during the second read you can focus on getting the crucial information down into your brief in an organized, concise way. I also think it helps you remember the case better when called on in class or when revisiting the case as you prepare outlines later in the semester.

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