Multiple Moot Court Victories for RWU Law!
It’s been a great semester for RWU Moot Court – maybe the best ever. Over the past few weeks Roger Williams’ finest have turned in phenomenal performances at the Constitutional Law Moot Court Competition, the Jessup Super-Regional Competition and the National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition.
At last month’s Constitutional Law Moot Court Competition, sponsored by Regent University, RWU’s team – comprised of 3L Aaron Frey, 3L Teresa Giusti and 2L Tyler Smith – bested William & Mary in the finals to take top honors, with Smith winning recognition as one of the top oralists.
The team was coached by Professor Jon Shelburne, director of competitions at the School of Law, and Moot Court Board President Krystal Bubnick. Professors Diana Hassel, Tim Kuhner, Anne Lawton, Tony Simpson, and Associate Dean David Zlotnick helped the team prepare by judging the numerous practice rounds necessary to win a national competition.
Meanwhile, our Jessup Cup team – 2L Jennifer Mota, 2L Megan Kilsy, 2L Catherine Lemery, 2L Jonathan Sussman and editor 2L Heath Hixson – made an outstanding showing at the Super Regionals in NYC, competing against teams from Harvard, Cornell and Columbia, among others, to win three out of four oral rounds.
Lemery and Sussman collected two out of 10 awards given for “Best Oralist”; for her part, Kilsy received a rare “100 percent” rating from one of her judges – that’s out of only three perfect scores awarded in the entire competition. And no other school had more than one student in the Top Ten!
Kudos to Eden Vinyarszky and to Commander Sean Henseler, an international law instructor at the Naval War College, who served as coaches for the team; as well as Shirley Staskiewicz, who handled administrative details. Professors Tim Kuhner, Peter Marguiles, Jared Goldstein and Kathryn Green were all instrumental in mooting the team, and Jackie Mouquin, a 2007 RWU alum and member of last year’s team, was a huge help in preparations.
Yet another RWU Moot Court team – consisting of 3L Jeannine Casselman, as well as 2Ls Ashley Medeiros and Greg Klipp – recently scored “Best Oralist” honors in all three preliminary rounds of the National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition in White Plains, N.Y.
A number of area attorneys and faculty members – specifically Jared Goldstein, Bruce Kogan, David Zlotnick and myself – assisted the team in preparing their oral arguments. Jared was especially helpful to the team due to his familiarity with one of the seminal cases (Headwaters v. Talent Irrigation District), having argued it during his tenure with the DOJ.
