Successful Speakers

Cal State Fullerton’s moot court team had a successful run at the American Collegiate Moot Court Association’s National Tournament at Chapman Law School in January.

Caption: Pamela Fiber-Ostrow

Moot Court is a simulation of an appellate court proceeding (also known as mock Supreme Court and Supreme Court simulation). Students from the participating colleges compete as teams, research and write briefs and deliver oral arguments about a hypothetical legal case before an appellate court.

Throughout the fall semester, CSUF’s contestants researched the issues and laws relevant to the case in preparation for the regional competition in December at Cal State Long Beach and the national competition one month later at Chapman.

The 2011 hypothetical case questioned whether an Internet chat room is a private protected space under the Fourth Amendment, and whether the First Amendment protects threats against the president.

Undergraduate moot court teams consist of two oral advocates. Each team has 20 minutes to argue its case, and each advocate must speak for a minimum of seven minutes. Teams are judged on their forensics, knowledge of the law, demeanor and ability to answer questions from the bench.

At the western regional competition at Cal State Long Beach Dec. 2-3, CSUF students earned bids to the national competition for five two-person teams:

• history major Cate Sauter and political science major Michelle Freeman (semi-finalists);
• political science majors Gregory Washington and Colby Johnson (semi-finalists);
• political science majors Amy Bailey and Jessica Roundy;
• women’s studies major Bree-Anna McCalley and criminal justice major Kellye Ng-McCollogh; and 
• political science majors Marco Pulido and Speros Mantas.

CSUF dominated the overall speaker awards.

Political science majors Kayla Coriaty and Lauren Allen took second and sixth place, respectively; Gregory Washington took fifth, and his partner, Colby Johnson, took third. Additional speakers finished in the top 20 including, team captain Amy Bailey, Jason Lanier and Lance Morgan.

At the national contest in January, CSUF took first place honors in the written brief category through the efforts of Jessica Roundy and Michelle Freeman, who also won speaker awards.

“Since CSUF’s moot court program began five years ago, our success rate and appearance at national competition has increased every year, due to the dedication of moot court students and the faculty who spend weekends preparing teams for competition,” said Pamela Fiber-Ostrow, associate professor of political science and moot court team coach.

April 17, 2012