Notre Dame's Moot Court Teams: Competing and Winning in the Legal Arena

Summary

The Notre Dame Moot Court program is one of the top legal training programs in the United States, providing students with the opportunity to learn, hone, and showcase their legal skills. The program prepares students for courtrooms and other legal arenas by immersing them in legal theory and challenging them with real-world legal scenarios. This program has become so popular that the university now hosts a Notre Dame Moot Court National Championship every two years, where teams of two compete against one another to demonstrate their mastery of the law.


The philosophy of the Notre Dame Moot Court program is to stimulate the intellectual growth of its students by providing an intense, competitive legal experience. Through the program, students learn how to apply legal theory to real-world situations and sharpen their analytical, research, and writing skills. The program also allows students to develop their oratory and advocacy skills, which can be invaluable in both the courtroom and the legal profession.

The program begins with an introduction to legal research, writing, and advocacy. Students then begin to receive instruction on specific areas of the law, such as criminal and constitutional law, and work on creating arguments for the moot court competitions. There are also opportunities for students to team up with a partner and practice “friend of the court” briefs, which they must submit before the competition.

The Notre Dame Moot Court program culminates in the National Championship, a two-day competition during which teams of two present oral arguments before a panel of judges composed of prominent members of the legal community. The National Championship is an annual event, and the Notre Dame team has become a major contender; the team has won or placed in the top five in nine out of the last 10 competitions.

The Notre Dame Moot Court program is one of the top places to hone legal skills in the US. The program teaches students not just legal theory but practical skills they can use in the legal profession, such as research, writing, argumentation, and oration. The program culminates in a National Championship, which the Notre Dame team has had great success in, winning or placing in the top five in nine out of the last 10 competitions. The Notre Dame Moot Court program is an all-around excellent experience for those interested in legal studies.<
 

The Notre Dame Moot Court Team

The prestigious Notre Dame Law School's Mock Court Team is one of the most formidable in the United States. Competing in the Moot Court National Championship, the Fighting Irish have consistently placed in the top ranks of intramural and extramural competitions. The program has provided students with an opportunity to sharpen their legal writing and oral advocacy skills, both key competencies for being successful in the field of law.

The Moot Court National Championship

The Notre Dame Moot Court Team participates in the Moot Court National Championship, which is an annual interschool tournament hosted by the American Bar Association. During the tournament, student teams from across the country compete in a simulated legal problem in a series of rounds. Teams must produce legal briefs for both sides of the argument and make oral arguments before a simulated courtroom.

Preparation for the Moot Court National Championships

In preparation for the Moot Court National Championship, the Notre Dame legal team spends countless hours researching, reading, and writing the legal briefs necessary to present their case to the judges. The team's faculty advisors guide the student team in the development of legal arguments, briefing strategies, and oral presentation techniques. The advisors also provide feedback to the student team on what they've learned and how they can improve their legal skills.

Benefits of Participating in Moot Court

Competing in the Moot Court National Championship is a great opportunity for students to gain a valuable learning experience and gain recognition for their work. Participating in the competition can also lead to future scholarships and job opportunities in the legal field. Additionally, members of the Notre Dame Moot Court Team are able to hone their legal writing and oral advocacy skills in a supportive, competitive atmosphere.

What Sets the Notre Dame Moot Court Team Apart

The Notre Dame Moot Court Team has consistently placed in the top ranks of intramural and extramural competitions, indicative of the team's hard work and dedication. The team is supported by faculty advisors who are committed to helping the students succeed and excel in the legal field. The Fighting Irish's commitment to excellence, combined with their legal acumen, makes them one of the best teams in the country.

Notre Dame's Moot Court and Mock Trial teams are partly run by third-year law students and supervised by practicing lawyers and judges. Students receive academic credit for participating on one of three teams, which are run more like clinics than classes.

"There is no substitute for working through a case and thinking like a lawyer," says Edward A. Sullivan, III, a Notre Dame alumnus now with the firm Baker & Daniels and one of the moot court team's supervisors. Sullivan practices commercial litigation, constitutional law, and school law focusing on rights of disabled students.

In addition, if students want to become litigators, during moot court they will use the essential elements of an appellate oral argument, even though, Sullivan tells students, "Chances are, as a first-year associate, you won't be arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court."

Still, many law students who are in "test-taking mode," says Sullivan, learn about law, but not necessarily how to use it in a case—an invaluable skill for any lawyer. Moot court and mock trial competitions teach students how to use the law and also how to use the facts of a specific case in the interest of a client. "Facts persuade people," says Sullivan. Being able to say something persuasive under pressure is a skill every lawyer needs, says Sullivan, litigator or not.

The Notre Dame moot court program, which has competitions in an appellate court format, has three groups that law students compete to be in: the National Team, the Regional Team, and the Seventh Circuit Team.

The program accepts up to 40 students who sign up at the end of their first year and start in the first semester of their second year. The second-year students are split into groups of 20 and spend the first semester competing against each other. They receive a case file that is a modified version of an actual case pending before the United States Supreme Court and spend the fall researching and writing a brief for their side of the case.

Then the second-years present their "Supreme Court" cases to a panel of team advisors and other law school faculty members, who ask them questions and score them based on their presentation skills and the substance of their arguments. The most important thing is "what are they saying?" says Sullivan. A student could be very persuasive and have a great presence, but he also needs to use precedent properly, answer questions well, and advance his client's case.

The judges rank the students, and for 30 of them, that's the end of it—they receive credit for the course, and their moot court competition ends with the fall semester. The top 10 students move on to the next level in the spring semester of their second year. They will be the third-year team. Then there is another internal competition during which the 10 second-years are ranked to determine what part of the team they will be on in their third year.

The current third-years help to make this decision. The 10 students on Notre Dame moot court team in their third year are called "the third-year board," and they do more than compete. First, they prepare the case file that the second-years use to compete in the first semester. Then they help rank the second-years who will be replacing them to be the next-year's third-year board.

The top four students become Notre Dame's National Team, competing on a national level, with an eye towards qualifying for the national tournament in New York in early February. Then students five and six are the Regional Team, competing against schools in Notre Dame's designated region.

Students seven through 10 also compete, but on an entirely different level. These students comprise the Seventh Circuit Team and argue cases before the actual federal court of appeals based in Chicago on behalf of indigent imprisoned clients. This team is "not a competition, it's the real world," says Sullivan.

Usually, second-years make it known to the board where their interests lie, says Sullivan; the students representing prisoners on their appeals want to be there. The Notre Dame students on this "team" write briefs and represent prisoners pro bono by appearing before the Seventh Circuit to argue their appeals. These are "very difficult cases," says Sullivan; they are "end-of-the-line kind of appeals, when [the prisoners] have tried everything else," he adds. And, although the circuit judges praise the Notre Dame students, they do not go easy on them, says Sullivan.

"It's tough" to choose who makes the top 10 and who does not, says Sullivan. The supervisors and third-year board are looking for both talent and desire. Competitions are comprised of a written brief and the oral arguments, and the Seventh Circuit judges do not suffer fools gladly, so team members have to be highly skilled in both writing and speaking. There is just "no substitute for someone who can really communicate," says Sullivan.