Congratulations to the 2018 Jenkins Honors Moot Court Competition Finalists

Congratulations to the winners of the 2018 Jenkins Honors Moot Court Competition, Olivia Garman and Sarita Olson. Congratulations also go to finalists Killian Commers and William Ruffing.  Killian Commers and William Ruffing additionally won the Franz C. Eschweiler Prize for Best Brief.  Olivia Garman won the Ramon A. Klitzke Prize for Best Oralist.

The competitors argued before a large audience in the Lubar Center. Presiding over the final round were Hon. Goodwin Liu, Hon. Stephen Murphy, and Hon. Lisa Neubauer.

Many thanks to the judges and competitors for their hard work, enthusiasm, and sportsmanship in all the rounds of competition, as well as to the moot court executive board and Law School administration and staff for their work in putting on the event. Special thanks to Dean Kearney for his support of the competition.  Thank you as well to the Moot Court Association for its work in putting this event together, and especially 3L executive board members Tsz King Tse, who organized the competition, and Chief Justice Nathan Oesch.

Students are selected to participate in the competition based on their success in the fall Appellate Writing and Advocacy class at the Law School.

Here is a link to the video of the final round.

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If You Want to Be a Defense Attorney, be a Prosecutor

This semester in Professor Lisa Mazzie’s Advanced Legal Writing: Writing for Law Practice seminar, students are required to write one blog post on a law- or law school-related topic of their choice. Writing blog posts as a lawyer is a great way to practice writing skills, and to do so in a way that allows the writer a little more freedom to showcase his or her own voice, and—eventually for these students—a great way to maintain visibility as a legal professional. Here is one of those blog posts, this one written by 3L Naomi Tovar.

As of earlier this week, I was one of the few people in law school that had never watched Making a Murderer. I did not even know what it was about. Then last night, I decided to watch the first episode. I thought it was finally time to watch the show, considering that I had recently decided the criminal law field is where I want to grow professionally.

Those decisions (to pursue criminal law and to watch the documentary) were easy. The more difficult decision I have to face, however, is whether I should be a prosecutor or a defense attorney. At first blush, the answer is simple: defense. A defense attorney protects the rights of those who, according the founding law of our country, are innocent until proven guilty. Many times, defense attorneys represent the poor, the marginalized, and the disenfranchised of our society. I came to law school to do exactly that.

Then I binged watched the first six episodes of Making a Murderer and my thoughts changed.

Continue ReadingIf You Want to Be a Defense Attorney, be a Prosecutor

Congratulations to the 2018 Jenkins Honors Moot Court Competition Semifinalists

Congratulations to the students in the 2018 Jenkins Honors Moot Court Competition who advanced from the quarterfinal round to the semifinal round.  These students will be competing at 1 p.m. today:

William Ruffing & Killian Commers v. Alexander Hensley & Claudia Ayala
Jehona Osmani & Emily Gaertner v. Sarita Olson & Olivia Garman

Congratulations to all the teams who competed in the quarterfinals.  We appreciated the judges coming out to hear the oralists.  Among the judges were a number of Jenkins and moot court alumni, including Natalie Schiferl, who came all the way from Minnesota to judge with her Jenkins partner, Mary Youssi.

Best of luck to the semifinalists!

Continue ReadingCongratulations to the 2018 Jenkins Honors Moot Court Competition Semifinalists
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