Moot Court Awes the MSU-DCL Community
	with Superior Success

BY NELIA VAN GOOR

The 2002 Fordham Securities Law Team, left to right, Dave Millar, Simon Lo, Tom Clement, Steve Stawski and Nick Ayoub .

Lindsey Wilson, 2001-02 student executive director of MSU-DCL’s Moot Court, has much to tout. Of this year’s seven appellate competition teams, three won Best Brief awards, and two won third- and fourth-place briefs.

“Over the years, MSU-DCL’s Moot Court Board has amassed an awe-inspiring number of awards,” says Wilson. “The plaques and trophies that have accumulated in our office are testament to this. However, I think this year is different in that we made a concentrated effort to improve our written brief scores in appellate competitions, and the fact that we won three Best Brief awards is nothing less than extraordinary.”

Possibly the most remarkable team was this year’s Fordham Securities Law Team, led by second-year student Thomas Clement. Fordham Law School hosts an annual securities law competition in New York and is well known for recruiting highly regarded judges to preside over the final rounds (last year Justice Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court).

In this year’s competition, Clement, along with students Steven Stawski, Simon Lo, David Millar and Nicholas Ayoub, won the Best Brief award, advanced to the final round and argued before Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Ultimately they placed second overall in the competition. This definitely was the proudest accomplishment of Moot Court, and Wilson stresses the lesson behind it: “Never underestimate the importance of the written brief in competition. Superior oral advocacy is simply not enough.”

RWA CLASSES HOLD FINAL ARGUMENTS

The Research, Writing and Advocacy department held its final oral arguments in April. Judging the arguments were, left to right, Judge Patrick Duggan, Judge Richard Suhrheinrich, Judge Denise Page Hood and Michigan Supreme Court Justice Steven Markman. .

Best oralist Gerald Williams

Semi-finalist Bruce McPherson