ACS Moot Court Finalists Announced
NEW YORK, NY (March 6, 2006) -- The Columbia Law School chapter of the American Constitution Society proudly announces the results of the first annual Constance Baker Motley National Moot Court Competition in Constitutional Law, held at Columbia University School of Law on March 4th and 5th.
Twenty-seven teams from sixteen schools and fifteen states competed in five rounds of oral arguments on the topic of felon disfranchisement. The two finalist teams, Adam Litle and Sonya Mays from the University of Michigan Law School and Suzanne LiaBraaten and Andrea Schmitt from the University of Washington School of Law, will travel to the ACS National Convention in Washington, D.C. to compete for the $3,000 national championship on Thursday, June 15, 2006. The second place team will receive $1,000.
Other highlights of the weekend included Jack Greenberg, Professor of Law at Columbia and former Director-Counsel of the NAACP LDF, dedicating the competition to the memory of his former colleague, Judge Constance Baker Motley, and competitors arguing before Lisa Brown, Executive Director of the ACS, Guy-Uriel Charles, Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota, the Honorable Helen Freedman of the Supreme Court of New York, Victor Kovner, Partner at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP and member of the Board of Directors of the ACS, Gara LaMarche, Vice President and Director of U.S. Programs for the Open Society Institute, the Honorable Jed Rakoff of the Southern District of New York, Theodore Shaw, Director-Counsel and President of the NAACP LDF, and William Yeomans, Director of Programs of the ACS, among many others.
The full list of award winners is as follows:
Finalists: Adam Litle and Sonya Mays from the University of Michigan Law School
Suzanne LiaBraaten and Andrea Schmitt from the University of Washington School of Law
Best Oral Advocate: Andrea Schmitt from University of Washington School of Law
Best Brief, Petitioner: Peter Basso and Siddhartha Mukherjee from Northeastern University School of Law
Best Brief, Respondent: Cuauhtémoc Ortega '07 and Leanne Wilson '07 from Columbia University School of Law
Semifinalists: Edward Cantu and Rebecca Ryan from The University of Texas School of Law
Cuauhtémoc Ortega '07 and Leanne Wilson '07 from Columbia University School of Law
Quarterfinalists: Craig Boneau '08 and Nina Yadava '08 from Columbia University School of Law
Áron Boros and Osvaldo Vasquez from the University of Michigan Law School
Sara Brenner and Kim Ravener from Harvard Law School
Jim Doggett '08 and Adam Pulver '08 from Columbia University School of Law
More information about the national competition is available on the web at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/law/acs/mootcourt/ or by contacting Mary Kelly Persyn '07, Columbia ACS president, at [email protected].
# # #