Moot Court Program

Second-Year Advanced Appellate Advocacy Course and Fegtly Moot Court Competition

Each spring, the law school offers a course in Advanced Appellate Advocacy, which includes a competition in brief writing and appellate argument. The course leads to the selection of students who will represent the school in the ABA National Appellate Advocacy competition during their third year, as well as the winners of various awards for their advocacy skills. The course and competition are directed by the Moot Court Board—comprised of the previous year’s ten highest-scoring students.

The Advanced Appellate Advocacy course meets weekly during the first part of the semester. The instructional material builds on the techniques of brief-writing and oral advocacy covered in Persuasive Communication, a fall semester course that is a prerequisite to Moot Court.

Students in this course, and in the Fegtly Competition, focus their work on writing a substantial appellate brief and then arguing the case before a panel of judges.  Each student has a Moot Court Board advisor to review the outline and first draft of the brief. After completing their final briefs, students argue both the “on” and “off-brief” sides of the case, preceded by practice arguments before members of the Moot Court Board.

In the preliminary rounds, students argue before panels of three lawyers acting as judges.  Eight students advance to the semi-final arguments, from which four students are then selected for the final round of arguments.  This final competition is argued to a panel of very distinguished jurists.  (In 2007, for example, the judges were  Arizona Supreme Court Justices Rebecca Berch and Andrew Hurwitz, and United States District Court Judge Cindy Jorgenson.)  The competition concludes with various awards and monetary prizes, including the Fegtly award for the highest combined score in brief-writing and oral advocacy, and the F. Britton Burns Award for the two best oral arguments in the Finals Round.

ABA National Appellate Advocacy Competition

The American Bar Association holds an annual national competition in appellate advocacy, in which the Law School usually participates.  After writing briefs, which are scored, student teams go to regional competitions; the top eight teams in each region advance to the national finals.  Generally, the problem used has two distinct major issues, allowing two advocates from each team to present separate oral arguments.  More details concerning the ABA competition are available at its website, http://www.abanet.org/lsd/competitions/naac.

Teams from the Rogers College of Law consist of third-year law students, selected based on their performance in the Second Year Moot Court Program and Fegtly Competition.  The College usually enters two teams of three students each.  All three team members work on the brief and attend the regional competition, but only two argue.