Yale Law School Teams Win Awards at Moot Court Competitions

Yale Law School’s moot court teams received awards and accolades at a number of recent competitions.

In October 2014, Yale Law School students attended the National Institute for Trial Advocacy’s Tournament of Champions (TOC). TOC features the country’s sixteen best law school trial advocacy teams, as gauged by team performance at other national trial advocacy competitions during the previous year. At the 2014 TOC, Yale advanced to the semi-finals before falling to eventual champion Cal-Berkeley. Additionally, Ben Wallace ’16 was named the tournament’s Best Speaker, an award bestowed upon the student advocate who performs best through the tournament’s four preliminary rounds.

In February 2015, Yale Law School’s Jessup International Law Moot Court team received the First Place Memorial Award at the Northeast Regional Rounds, placing ahead of 20 other law schools. Then in August 2015, the team received the Hardy C. Dillard Award at the International Rounds, placing fourth among more than 550 law schools from more than 80 countries. The Jessup is the world’s largest moot court competition, bringing together law schools from around the world to litigate issues of public international law.

The Yale team consisted of captain Peter Tzeng ’16, Anna Diakun ’15, Maeghan Mikorski ’15, Mekela Panditharatne ’16, and Lisa Wang ’17 and was coached by Asaf Lubin ’15 LLM.

“This was the first time YLS has had a Jessup team in five years,” remarked Tzeng, who put the team together last fall. “So receiving the First Place Memorial Award and the Hardy C. Dillard Award was truly a surprise.”

Also in February, Lindsay Brewer ’16, Whitney Angell Leonard ’15, and Joya Sonnenfeldt ’17 represented Yale Law School at this year’s National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition (NELMCC) hosted by Pace University School of Law. The team won the award for Best Brief for Plaintiff-Appellant, one of three brief-writing awards given out among the 62 participating teams. The Yale team also received two Best Oralist commendations during the early rounds of the oral argument competition and advanced to the quarterfinals.

“The structure of this competition is unique in requiring each team to represent three different postures: the government, a public interest group, and industry,” said Joya Sonnenfeldt. “Environmental cases often involve such party structures and, while you don’t often have to advance and counter arguments from all three sides when representing a client, the competition made us realize the importance of thinking through the issues from all of the different perspectives.”

The Morris Tyler Moot Court competition, where Yale Law School students compete against classmates, takes place each semester at Yale Law School, culminating in the Harlan Fiske Stone Prize Finals in the fall and the Thurman Arnold Prize Finals in the spring. The final round this semester will be held April 20. All second- and third-year law students are eligible to participate.