Five students from UW’s College of Law will be traveling to Washington D.C. to participate in a global competition. .
Moot court can refer to any instance where students practice what they’ve learned in law school. The moot court that UW is participating in is known as the Jessup C. Philip International Moot Court, and is the largest in the world.
“You can imagine moot court kind of like speech and debate, but for law students,” David Demic, team captain and UW law student, said. “Students pretend to be actual lawyers. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of different kinds of moot courts in the world.”
While there are many different moot court competitions, this one is set apart from the rest.
“The Jessup C. Philip International Moor Court is special, because it is the largest moot court in the world with 550 law schools hailing from 87 countries,” Demic said.
Demic said that represent fake countries and present to an International Court of Justice. In this court, countries sue each other and students defend and prosecute for their countries. Topics can include water rights, cultural artifact rights and refugees.
“At the Jessup, law students get to present arguments regarding cutting areas of international law or topics that have been hotly argued,” Demic said.
The competition consists of two parts, one written and one oral. The written competition, also called a memorial, was submitted in January, and the oral competition takes place at the event.
UW’s Jessup C. Philip Moot Court team consists of all Wyoming natives, including Demic, Kristina Mireles, Brandon Rosty, Ian Smith and Allison Connell.
The team won its regional event in Denver, which included teams like CU Boulder, Kansas State, Washburn University, Buffalo, NY and New York University. NYU’s law school is ranked among the top 10 in the nation.. UW went a perfect 7-0 against these opponents and earned the top spot in the region.
“It was a Hoosiers moment, they ran the table, they were perfect,” Noah Novogrodsky, international law professor and coach of the team, said. “They won the Rocky Mountain Regional competition. It’s unprecedented, and in my time here we have never won our regional competition.”
Novogrodsky has been the Philip C. Jessup Moot Court coach since 2009.
UW students took four of the top ten spots in the oral competition, including three of the top three finishes. Demic earned first place, Mireles took second place, Rosty took third and Connell placed seventh. The team also had the top score for the memorial section.
The international event will take place in Washington, D.C. from Apr. 9 to Apr. 15. There will be over 90 teams present representing 87 different countries around the world. Each team consists of around two to five members, and hundreds of students will be at the competition.
The two top teams from each of the six U.S. regions will compete. Despite a top finish at the regional level, the team still has work to do.
“There is so much international law to draw from and learn,” Demic said. “After three years of doing this, I still feel like I have barely scraped the top of the pile. But, ultimately, we are excited to dive deeper into the legislative drafting behind some of the treaties that we discuss in our argument.”
Novogrodsky said the team has a good shot at winning the competition.
“I think [their chances are] good,” Novogrodsky said. “I wouldn’t underestimate this team after how they did. All five students are from Wyoming, and they have really done Wyoming proud. I think we were better prepared, we were better performers, and we were rewarded.”
