A student stands in front of three judges in Moot Court.

Harlan Fiske Stone Moot Court Competition

About the 2024–2025 Competition

The Harlan Fiske Stone Moot Court Competition final arguments—part of the Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison Moot Court Program—are the culmination of a three-round elimination competition in appellate advocacy. This year, 66 students entered the competition. In the qualifying round, held during the fall semester, students briefed one of two issues on behalf of either the appellant or the appellee and presented their positions in oral arguments before panels composed of alumni practitioners and professors.

This year’s event marks the 99th anniversary of the Harlan Fiske Stone Moot Court final oral arguments. Originally started at Columbia Law School in 1925 by the Story Inn, a chapter of the legal fraternity Phi Delta Phi, the competition is named in honor of Harlan Fiske Stone 1898, who was a member of the Story Inn while a student at the Law School. Stone became dean of Columbia Law School in 1910. He served in that capacity until 1924, when President Calvin Coolidge appointed him attorney general of the United States. He was named to the Supreme Court of the United States the following year and was elevated to chief justice in 1941.

The case this year asks whether a child can successfully bring a defamation claim against a parent who is a social media influencer and whether a related claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress should be heard under the laws of New York or Washington, D.C. The final round of the competition was held on Thursday, March 27, 2025. Oral arguments were delivered by four outstanding student finalists: Miles Kim ’25, who won best final round brief; Nicole Morote ’25, who was awarded the Lawrence S. Greenbaum Prize for best oral presentation; Alice Park ’25, and Akesh Shah ’25.

For more information about this year’s competition, see the Student Directors’ Blog.

1. Did the district court err in denying the defendant’s motion for summary judgment with respect to the intentional infliction of emotional distress claim, based on a finding that the claim should be adjudicated under the laws of Washington, D.C.? 

2. Did the district court err in denying the defendant’s motion for summary judgment as to the defamation claim?

Plaintiff-Appellee Joshua Morgan (“J.M.”) is a young transgender adult. J.M.’s parents are divorced, and his mother, Defendant-Appellant Emily Morgan (“Ms. Morgan”), lives in New York. His father, Trevor Morgan (“Mr. Morgan”), lives in Washington, D.C. In 2023, when J.M. was still a minor, Mr. Morgan filed this action against Ms. Morgan on J.M.’s behalf. The suit asserts claims for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress (“IIED”). 

The conflicts between J.M. and Ms. Morgan center on long-running disputes over J.M.’s gender identity and Ms. Morgan’s past depictions of J.M. on social media. Ms. Morgan is a social media influencer with over 8 million followers. Her social media accounts have featured posts about J.M. since he was born. In Ms. Morgan’s posts, J.M. has been referred to by his former name, “Isabella” or “Bella,” and described using female pronouns. Ms. Morgan has also posted about J.M.’s grades, concerns that J.M. was using drugs, and other issues. 

In 2021, when J.M. was a junior in high school and attending public school in Washington, D.C., Ms. Morgan transferred J.M. to a strict residential school, Stonebridge Academy (“Stonebridge”), with Mr. Morgan’s reluctant consent. J.M. was not permitted to communicate with anyone outside the school. The school did not recognize J.M.’s gender transition and disposed of some of J.M.’s belongings (such as masculine clothing) with Ms. Morgan’s permission. After several months, J.M. was able to call his father using a cell phone that had been smuggled into the school by another student. Mr. Morgan immediately withdrew J.M. from the school, and J.M. returned with Mr. Morgan to Washington, D.C., where J.M. has lived ever since. 

In the fall of 2022, when applying to college, J.M. posted a copy of his college application essay on a private social media account. The essay described Ms. Morgan’s behavior toward J.M., including her lack of acceptance of his gender identity and her decision to send him to Stonebridge. One of J.M.’s cousins shared the post with a wider audience, and it eventually reached Ms. Morgan. Ms. Morgan then posted a public online response, expressing sorrow about the situation and asserting that she sent J.M. to Stonebridge because he was using marijuana and “had become a drug addict.” Ms. Morgan also asserted that J.M. was pretending to be transgender to create a “good story” for his college applications. Given Ms. Morgan’s large social media following, her response to J.M. sparked an online debate, with social media users and gossip sites discussing the family conflict. 

In the spring of 2023, J.M. was rejected from every college to which he had applied. Mr. Morgan then filed this suit on behalf of J.M. in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging (1) that Ms. Morgan defamed J.M. by calling him a drug addict and saying that he was pretending to be transgender for college admissions purposes; and (2) that Ms. Morgan should be held liable for intentional infliction of emotional distress for repeatedly posting about J.M.’s personal life online, publicly using J.M.’s birth name and feminine pronouns against J.M.’s wishes, and sending J.M. to Stonebridge. 

Following discovery, Ms. Morgan moved for summary judgment, which the district court denied. Ms. Morgan was granted permission for an interlocutory appeal, which is now pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The parties currently dispute whether New York or Washington, D.C., law ought to apply to the infliction of emotional distress claim and whether the defamation claim ought to have been dismissed as a matter of law. 

Nicole Morote and Akesh Shah

Counsel for the Plaintiff-Appellee

Nicole Morote ’25 and Akesh Shah ’25 will represent the plaintiff-appellee in J.M., a minor, by and through his father and next friend, Trevor Morgan v. Emily Morgan.

Miles Kim and Alice Park

Counsel for the Defendant-Appellant

Miles Kim ’25 and Alice Park ’25 will represent the defendant-appellant in J.M., a minor, by and through his father and next friend, Trevor Morgan v. Emily Morgan.

The Judges

Judge Cindy K. Chung ’02 has served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit since February 2023. Prior to her judicial service, Chung was an assistant U.S. attorney (2014–2021) and the U.S. attorney (2021–2023) for the Western District of Pennsylvania. She held numerous positions during her tenure as an assistant U.S. attorney, including deputy chief of the Major Crimes Section, acting deputy chief of the Violent Crimes Section, domestic violence coordinator, Project Safe Neighborhoods coordinator, Border Security coordinator, and Civil Rights coordinator. From 2009 to 2014, Chung served as a trial attorney in the Criminal Section of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, and from 2003 to 2009, she was an assistant district attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s Office. Chung also served as a law clerk for Judge Myron Thompson on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama from 2002 to 2003. She received a J.D. from Columbia Law School in 2002 and a B.A. from Yale University in 1997.

Judge Nancy G. Abudu was confirmed as a circuit judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in May 2023. Prior to her appointment, Abudu was a lawyer with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), where she served as the organization’s first-ever deputy legal director for voting rights, and then SPLC’s first director of strategic litigation. Her litigation areas of focus also included immigrants’ rights, criminal justice reform, children’s rights, LGBTQ rights, and special litigation related to hate groups. Abudu spent almost 14 years with the American Civil Liberties Union, first as a voting rights attorney with the national office and then as the legal director for the Florida affiliate. Her legal experience includes being an associate with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in the firm’s New York office and working in the 11th Circuit’s staff attorney office early in her career. Abudu was selected as a Harvard Law School Wasserstein Fellow in 2021, and she serves on various American Bar Association task forces and committees. 

Judge Kenneth M. Karas ’91 was appointed U.S. district judge for the Southern District of New York on June 30, 2004, and entered duty on September 7, 2004. Upon graduating from law school, Karas clerked for U.S. District Judge Reena Raggi for the Eastern District of New York. He then served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, from 1992 to 2001, and chief of the Organized Crime and Terrorism Unit from 2001 to 2004. Karas has received the Distinguished Service Award and the John Marshall Award from the Justice Department and the Agency Seal Medallion from the CIA, and he was named the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association’s Prosecutor of the Year. In 2022, he was appointed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the Alien Terrorist Removal Court. Karas is a member of the Federal Bar Council, the board of directors for the National Association for Urban Debate Leagues, and the advisory committee for the New York City Urban Debate League. Karas received a B.A. from Georgetown University and a J.D. from Columbia Law.

From the Co-Directors

The directors would like to thank Sophia F. Bernhardt, lecturer in law and executive director of Legal Writing and Moot Court Programs, and Amanda Sen Villalobos, lecturer in law and associate director of Legal Writing and Moot Court Programs, for their tireless guidance and support. They spent innumerable hours ensuring that we had everything we needed to run the competition smoothly, from our very first conceptions of the problem all the way to the nitty- gritty details of room reservations. Additionally, thank you to those who took the time to read over the problem and provide necessary edits, including Philip M. Genty, Everett B. Birch Innovative Teaching Clinical Professor Emeritus in Professional Responsibility, and Daniel Richman, Paul J. Kellner Professor of Law. We are grateful to our competition judges, who have delved deeply into the material, crafting novel and interesting questions for our competitors to grapple with. Finally, we have so much appreciation for the competitors, whose participation and hard work transformed our hypothetical problem into incredible examples of advocacy.

Shreya Agarwala ’25 and Robert Kreklau ’25 are co-directors of the Harlan Fiske Stone Moot Court Competition of the Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison Moot Court Program.

Spotlight February 17, 2023

Black and white photo of a man seated wearing justice's robes

“The law itself is on trial in every case as well as the cause before it.”

1872

Cast in Stone

Born on a farm in Chesterfield, New Hampshire, on October 11, Stone grows up in Amherst, Massachusetts. (Stone’s family on his father’s side originally arrived from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635.) 

1894

Stepping Stone

Graduates from Amherst College, where he plays on the football team and becomes acquainted with fellow student and future President Calvin Coolidge, who will later nominate Stone to the Supreme Court. His classmates predict Stone will “proceed to be the most famous man in [the class of] ’94.”

1898

A Stone’s Throw Away

Graduates from Columbia Law School, joins the New York City firm of Wilmer and Canfield (later Satterlee, Canfield, & Stone), and, in 1899, begins teaching at Columbia Law as a lecturer in law. In 1905, he resigns from the faculty to devote himself full-time to private practice.

1910

The New Stone Age

Returns to Columbia Law School as dean and resumes teaching. An inspiring educator who champions the increasingly popular “case” method, he teaches courses in trusts, contracts, mortgages, criminal law, and property. Students regard him as a friend and honor him by calling themselves “Stone-agers.” After repeatedly clashing with Columbia University President Nicholas Murray Butler, Stone resigns in 1923 and joins the Wall Street firm Sullivan & Cromwell.

1915

Stonewalling

Pushes back against Barnard College Dean Virginia Gildersleeve, who lobbies for women to be admitted to the Law School. In a letter to Gildersleeve, he tells her the faculty believes it is “inadvisable” for any law school to be coeducational. “What I would like to see is a serious undertaking to establish an independent school for women. This, I believe, is the proper solution of the problem,” he wrote her. (The Columbia Law faculty votes to admit women on the same terms as men in 1928.)

1924

Set in Stone

Appointed by President Calvin Coolidge as U.S. attorney general. His most enduring legacy as attorney general is selecting 29-year-old J. Edgar Hoover as acting director of the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation. Hoover, who becomes its director by the end of the year, leads the agency (renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935) until his death in 1972.

1925

Rolling Stone

Nominated to the Supreme Court, where former President William Howard Taft is chief justice, Stone is the first nominee to have a confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. On the high court, he soon aligns himself with the titanic left-of-center justices Louis Brandeis and Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

1936

Killing Two Birds With One Stone

Delivers an eloquent and important dissent in United States v. Butler outlining two principles for declaring statutes unconstitutional.One is that courts are concerned only with the power to enact statutes, not their wisdom,” he writes. “The other is that while unconstitutional exercise of power by the executive and legislative branches of the government is subject to judicial restraint, the only check up our own exercise of power is our own sense of self-restraint.”

1938

Leaving No Stone Unturned

In Stone’s opinion in United States v. Carolene Products Co., his footnote No. 4 becomes what is universally recognized as “the most important footnote in constitutional law.” He writes that legislation should be “subjected to more exacting judicial scrutiny” when it is “directed at particular religious, or national, or racial minorities” who are victims of “prejudice,” which spawns the principle of judicial review known as strict scrutiny. 

1940

Hits a Stone Wall

Stone is the lone dissenter in Minersville School District v. Gobitis, maintaining that a group of Jehovah’s Witness children have the right to not salute the flag—in defiance of a Pennsylvania flag salute statute—because they believe the action to be against their religious beliefs. (They consider the flag a graven image.) Stone maintains that the Pennsylvania statute violates the students’ rights to freedom of speech and religion, and he reads his entire dissent from the bench.

1941

Etched in Stone

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (who attended the Law School from 1905 to 1907) appoints Stone to succeed Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes Sr. 1884. The poet Archibald MacLeish writes that Stone’s elevation, on July 3, to chief justice is “so clearly and certainly and surely right, it resounded in the world like the perfect word spoken at the perfect moment.” Prior to his appointment, Stone writes the majority opinion in United States v. Darby Lumber Co., holding the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to be a valid exercise of federal power under the commerce clause. The Darby opinion made Stone “the intellectual leader of the Court’s center,” according to Stone biographer Alpheus T. Mason.

1943

Squeezing Blood From a Stone

The Supreme Court hears another flag salute case from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette. By a 6–3 vote, the justices side with Stone and overturn Gobitis. Justice Robert Jackson’s majority opinion echoes Stone’s lone dissent in Gobitis three years earlier.

1946

Engraved in Stone

Stone passes away on April 22 at 73, a few hours after having a cerebral hemorrhage while presiding over a session of the Supreme Court. Some 2,000 people attend his funeral at the Washington Cathedral, and he is buried at Rock Creek Cemetery. One of his eulogists is Alben Barkley, a senator from Kentucky and future vice president, who says, “No associate justice or chief justice . . . held a more abiding place in the affections of the American people and in the affections of all who knew him intimately and personally.” The Columbia Law Review memorializes him in September with the article “Harlan Fiske Stone: Teacher, Scholar and Dean.” 

Legacy

Long-standing Stone