Here are your National Moot Court Champions. Lindsey Barber, Cory Church, and Anne Miles Golson, all 2Ls, won the 69th Annual National Moot Court Competition in New York in January.
The team was coached by Assistant Dean for Students Mary Ksobiech and managed by Josh Kravec, 2L.
The Hugh F. Culverhouse Jr. School of Law at The University of Alabama hosted a symposium Friday, March 29, that explored Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark school desegregation case.
“Sixty-five years ago, the Supreme Court delivered an opinion that promised an end to racial segregation in the education system,” said Josh Polk, editor-in-chief of the Alabama Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Law Review. “Though we have made great strides in the intervening time, much progress is yet to be made.”
During the symposium on Brown’s Promise of Equality: 65 Years in the Marking, legal scholars and experts discussed racial segregation and diversity in Alabama’s public and private schools.
Jonathan Glater, Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, said that the vestiges of racism remain today. Schools, he said, are increasingly segregated by race, and the harms of discrimination persist.
“To ask whether Brown fulfilled its promise may ultimately be an unfair question, for scholars over the past decades have identified myriad ways in which a person’s racial identity affects life experiences, even health,” he said.
Bryan Mann, Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership, Policy, & Technology Studies at The University of Alabama, shared some of the results of his study of contemporary enrollment patterns in Alabama. The findings reveal that counties with districts still under court-ordered desegregation have begun limiting the trends of re-segregation from the 1990s and 20002, while those released from court orders have not.
Erica Frankenberg, Associate Professor of Education and Demography at Pennsylvania State University, provided the keynote address on the impact and limits of implementing Brown.
She approached the legacy of Brown through the lens of Alabama’s largest school district, Mobile County. It was one of the first counties to desegregate after the Brown decision, but later resisted. Professor Frankenberg analyzed 20 years of data and showed how re-segregation occurred in Mobile County.
“Political and demographic trends in Mobile County’s schools since 1997 illustrate the challenges of addressing school segregation in our contemporary era despite increasing social science evidence of the benefits of integration for students and our society.”
The Alabama Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Law Review sponsored the symposium.
Professor Joyce White Vance discusses the Jussie Smollett case on MSNBC.
For more, view “Why Was Jussie Smollett’s Case Sealed?”
Steven Arango, Cameron Rentschler, and Zach Smith, all 3Ls, won the 2019 Hispanic National Bar Association’s Uvaldo Herrera Moot Court Competition. This is the University of Alabama’s first championship in the competition. Thirty-two teams from law schools around the country competed in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The problem involved complex constitutional issues concerning freedom of the press and due process.
Steven Arango, Cameron Rentschler, Zach Smith, and Professor Cameron Fogle
The team had a perfect record throughout the tournament. In the final round, the team argued before a panel of judges from the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the New Mexico Supreme Court, and the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico.
The team was coached by Professor Cameron Fogle.
Nola.com interviewed Professor Fred Vars for a video about how to prevent gun suicide. His proposal allows residents to voluntarily suspend their ability to purchase a gun. Professor Vars’s interview begins at 3:04.
Nola.com interviewed Professor Fred Vars for a video about how to prevent gun suicide. His proposal allows residents to voluntarily suspend their ability to purchase a gun. Professor Vars’s interview begins at 3:04.
For more, read “Bill to Create Louisiana’s ‘Do-Not-Sell’ Gun Self-Registry Posts Online.”
The Law School and the American College of Trial Lawyers celebrated Lindsey Barber, Cory Church, and Anne Miles Golson, all 2Ls, for winning the 69th Annual National Moot Court Competition in New York.
Lindsey Barber, Anne Miles Golson, Cory Church, and Jeffrey S. Leon.
In his opening remarks, Dean Mark E Brandon said the School of Law at The University of Alabama has traditionally been a great place to train students for skills that are relevant to litigation at the very highest levels. Speaking to that tradition, he had the privilege of hosting the Law School’s annual alumni banquet in Birmingham this year, and many of the guests had themselves participated in moot court when they were students.
“When I announced to our alumni and friends that our team had won the National Moot Court Competition, the hall broke out in spontaneous and enthusiastic applause,” Brandon said. “They, like all of us in the building, are proud of you and what you’ve done.”
Before presenting the awards, Jeffrey S. Leon, President of the American College of Trial Lawyers, said: “I just want to tell you over my 40-year career I’ve seen a lot of lawyers, advocates, and counsel argue in court, and they have nothing on these three people.”
Leon presented the John W. Davis Award for Best Oral Presentation and the Fulton W. Haight Award for Best Oral Argument to Golson. He also presented plaques to each member of the team.
Assistant Dean for Students Mary Ksobiech, who has coached the 2L Moot Court Fellows for eight years, provided the closing remarks.
She described Barber “as grace under pressure,” and she noted that Church was the “inverse of unflappable.” Ksobiech said she has never seen anyone teach as well as Golson does from the podium, and that Josh Kravec, the team’s manager, motivated each member of the team.
“I describe what I get to do in the fall with the 2L Fellows as my favorite part of the year, and you three and Josh did not let me down, so thank you,” Ksobiech said.
This summer, Barber will work for Baker Donelson and Waller Lansden in Birmingham. Church will spend his summer at Bradley Arant and McGuire Woods in Charlotte, North Carolina. Golson will split her summer between Bradley Arant in Birmingham and Jones Day in Washington, D.C.
Aaron J. Blake, Hamilton Millwee, McGavinn Brown, and Hunter Windham, all 2Ls, competed in the final round of the John A. Campbell Moot Court Competition on Wednesday, March 20. These two teams were the last standing in a competitive field of 37 teams.
A distinguished panel served as judges for the final round. They were: The Honorable R. David Proctor, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama; The Honorable John H. England, III, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama; and The Honorable Staci G. Cornelius, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
Blake and Millwee were the winning team, and Brown won the Reuben H. Wright Award for best advocate. Mary Katherine White and Marky Bingham, also 2Ls, won the Walter P. Gewin Award for best brief.
The University of Alabama School of Law is ranked 25th among the nation’s top law schools, according to U.S. News & World Report’s annual “Best Graduate Schools” rankings for 2020. This marks the eighth consecutive year that Alabama’s Law School has been ranked in the Top 30 law schools in the nation. The Law School ranked eighth among public law schools in this year’s survey.
“I have long believed that, if we attend to those things that enhance the quality of life within the School of Law, good things will follow,” said Mark E. Brandon, Dean of the Law School. “It’s nice to see this philosophy affirmed in the most recent release from U.S. News.”
The U.S. News rankings of 192 law schools fully accredited by the American Bar Association are based on a weighted average of the 12 measures, including quality assessment, selectivity, and placement success. Data were collected in fall 2018 and early 2019.
Latinx lawyers from around the region discussed best practices and strategies for expanding and leveraging networks during a panel discussion held at the Law School on March 6.
The panel was designed to help students reach their career goals and practice their newfound skills at a networking reception. Panelists discussed how networking, mentorship, and sponsorship have been key to their career advancement. Panelists covered several topics, including how to find and best use mentors and sponsors.
The event was co-sponsored by the Office of Diversity & Inclusion, the Hispanic National Bar Association, and the Career Services Office.
Professor Fred Vars recently presented his proposal to prevent suicide at an Emory Law School conference. Professor Vars’s presentation begins at 44:42.
