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How to Be a Lawyer 101: Notre Dames Moot Court Competitors Carry Skills into Chosen Legal Fields
[by Erica Winter] Jeremy Moseley and his moot court team partner represented Notre Dame at the National Moot Court Championships run by the American College of Trial Attorneys and held in New York this past February. They did not win. (They lost in the rst round.) We did not do as well as we wanted, says Moseley.

Still, Moseley and his partner, now thirdyears, were 2 of 40 Notre Dame law students who embarked on this journey at the start of their second years, rising to the top of that group to be chosen among the four students who comprise Notre Dames National Moot Court Team.

for him. Also, the brief writing part of competition gives training in persuasive writing, Moseley says, and mirrors what a lawyer does in practice much more than a three-hour test. Blanchard first caught the moot-court

same as just thinking about them. As part of the national team, Blanchard and Moseley both went to the regional competition in Indianapolis. The competition involved arguing a fictional case that dealt with the federal mail fraud statute and a tax court issue, making it both statutory and procedural. While the format and logistics were the same as she had experienced in her second year, the case itself was more challenging, says Blanchard, because it was split between two entirely different subjects, and not two questions under one subject (such as the First Amendment). Blanchard and her teammate made a strategy decision to split up the tasks, with each tackling one subject. That tactic, however, ended up making it more difficult to collaborate with her partner in the competition, because they were each in two separate worlds, she says.

Charla Blanchard is also one of those four students. She and her partner went to regionals, but did not qualify for nationals as one of the top two teams in the region. Moseleys team came in second at regionals and also had the second-ranked brief at that competition of 16 law schools.

competition bug after a first-year moot court class. One of the judges who saw her give an oral argument suggested she try out for the Notre Dame team. She signed up, along with 40 other Notre Dame students, at the beginnng of her second year. By internal competition, this group of 40 was

National champions or not, being on the moot court team can be one of the most practical things you can learn in law school, says Moseley. There are two main skills needed in moot court competition-speaking and writing-for simulated cases brought before an appellate court, often the United States Supreme Court. Being on the moot court team makes you a quick thinker, says Blanchard. Competitors become accustomed to going out in front of different types of judges, to speaking in front of an audience, and to dealing with surprises. Competitors must write a brief on the case, which is scored and worth 40 percent of the teams final score; then they must give oral arguments, worth 60 percent, before a panel of judges-usually volunteer lawyers, judges, or law faculty. Giving oral arguments requires quick thinking and an ability to focus on both sides of a case, says Moseley, and is the most enjoyable part of the competition

whittled down to 10 students, who competed against each other again in the second semester of their second years. This group was then ranked, with the top 4 becoming part of Notre Dames national team. Blanchard and Moseley actually competed against each other in the second-year competition, says Moseley. In their first semester, students had to argue both for and against a First Amendment case on mixing commercial speech and political speech together. For the second semester, the 10 remaining students had to argue for or against a Fourth Amendment case involving search and seizure issues. Both cases were modified from actual cases pending before the United States Supreme Court at the time. The skills Blanchard and Moseley used as second-years are the same ones they use as third-year competitors. The real challenge is getting arguments sharp enough to argue them, says Blanchard, which is not the

Moseley and his partner both chose to do the initial research on both subjects; this way, they could bounce ideas of off each other to develop their arguments on the separate subjects, he says. They wrote their briefs separately but edited them together. It took a lot more time to do it that way, says Moseley, but the strategy paid off. As one of 28 teams from 14 regions at the national competition, Moseley and his partner competed on the same case they had at regionals. (This years winners were from University of California, Hastings College of Law, San Francisco.) Win or lose, Notre Dames team members

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will take their skills into their legal practice. Moseley will join the firm of Soulston Siefkin in Wichita, KS, and practice commercial litigation. He hopes to do appellate litigation someday; for now, he will flex the brief writing skills Ive developed, he says. Blanchard will go to work for the Cook County (Chicago) government in the Office of the Public Guardian. She will act as a Guardian Ad Litum, representing children in neglect and abuse cases, where she will use her confidence before judges advocating for children.

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