Moot Court - McGeorge School of Law

⭐️⭐️⭐️CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR TWO ABA TEAMS!!! ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Two of our stellar teams competed this weekend at the American Bar Association’s National Appellate Advocacy Competition. The rounds were held at the federal District Court in Philadelphia. 👩🏼‍⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️

To make it to the national rounds, both teams prevailed in the regional rounds held in San Francisco last month. 🥳

At nationals, the team of Francia Orduño (3L), Dani Diele Fatta (3L), and Alex Leshnick (3E) advanced to the octo-finals. 👏🏼

Additionally, the team of Ava Sutton (3L) and Morgan Graber (3L) advanced to the semi-final round of the competition. Ava and Morgan’s brief was named the second-best brief in the tournament out of the 178 briefs that were submitted from the 101 competing teams. And Ava was named one of the top oralists in the competition. 🏆

Our teams were coached by Professor Dan Croxall, Adjunct Professor Paige Davidson, alum Maricar Pascual and student coach Katherine Van Horn Pollack (3L), with Marino Dominguez (2L) serving as research assistant. ⭐️

Congratulations again to both teams! 🎉

⭐️A HUGE CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR LEFKOWITZ TEAM! ⭐️

Our moot court members just finished competing at nationals in the Saul Lefkowitz Moot Court Competition, after advancing from regionals. The team consisted of Tara Swanson (3L), Stephen Ribet (3L), and Daniel Perle (3L)—competing as oral advocates. Sara Helms (3L) served as the team’s student coach. Mike Mireles was the team’s faculty coach, and David Witkin was the alumni coach. Wilson Marinez (2L) was the team’s research assistant. 🔥

Due to their hard work and talent, the team is walking away from nationals with an award for 2nd Best Oralist Team!!! 🏆🏆🏆

We are so proud of you guys!

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR ABA TEAM!!

Both McGeorge teams at the San Francisco regional rounds for the ABA National Appellate Advocacy Competition won their final round and will now advance to Philadelphia next month for the national championship. This rare accomplishment marks the fourth time in the last fifteen years that McGeorge is sending its two teams to the national finals in the most prestigious moot court competition in the country✨

In addition, the team of Francia Orduño, Alex Leshnick and Dani Fatta Diele was awarded the prize for the best brief in the tournament. Francia was also named the best oralist. Morgan Graber and Ava Sutton were the stars of the other McGeorge team 🔥🔥

The teams were coached by faculty colleague Dan Croxall, alum Maricar Pascual, alum and adjunct faculty member Paige Davidson, and student coach Katherine Pollack. Marino Dominguez was the research assistant for the teams. Please congratulate all of them when you see them in class or on campus.⚖️🏆⭐️

HUGE CONGRATS to our “Final Four” that will be participating in our Monday Round, tomorrow February 26th, at 3:30 P.M. in the McGeorge Courtroom:

Lawson Bell and David Shanks for the Petitioner, and Courtney Yamagiwa and Jordan Fortunati for the Respondent.

This final round is open to the public, our panel will consist of three current judges from the California Third District Court of Appeal. There will be refreshments and awards (w/ Ben Frantz) after the oral arguments!

Fun fact: Did you know that brief covers submitted before the United States Supreme Court are red or blue to correspond with Respondent or Petitioner? ❤️💙

A huge shoutout to our top 10 advocates that will be advancing in the 1L moot court competition! These 10 will move on to our next round on Friday. Then the final 4 will be announced, which will take place Monday so stay tuned! Thank you to everyone who participated in the 1L competition, please be sure to look for the moot court applications dropping in March 👀

For now, make sure you congratulate these stars when you see them! ⭐️

Attention 1Ls:

Don’t forget to sign up for the 1L moot court competition! The dates have been changed to make sure that there will not be an interference with any 1L midterms! The deadline to sign up is this Friday, February 9th!

Here are more relevant dates following the sign up deadline:

Brief due - February 12th
Round 1 - February 17th
Round 2 - February 23rd
Final four - February 26th

Good luck to our FANTASTIC Houston team! ⭐️

Team Houston flies out tomorrow to participate in a very special competition that extends an invitation to the top 16 Moot Court programs in the nation. McGeorge has been invited to this competition 5 times while the program has been under the direction of Professor Telfeyan.

The competitors are John Hope (3L) and James Filling (3L). The student coach is Saul Vargas (3L). The research assistant is Ryan Rodriguez (2L). The faculty coach is Professor Telfeyan. The alumni coach is Gil Vega.

☆ ☆ ☆ ANNOUNCING THE 2024 MOOT COURT TEAMS ☆ ☆ ☆

In the order of competition dates:

Lefkowitz, February 3rd;
ABA, February 29th-March 2nd;
Wagner, March 1st-3rd;
Davis Asylum, March 15th-16th;
Gibbons, March 15th-16th;
Williams, March 16th; and
Traynor, April 13th-14th.

☑︎ More mooting is on our New Year’s resolution, what about you?

The University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law’s moot court program finished 14th in the nation for the 2022-2023 school year, according to rankings published by the University of Houston Law Center. Among the 18 ABA-approved law schools in California, McGeorge finished second.

We are so proud of our advocates and cannot wait to see what the 2023-2024 team will accomplish!

For more information, check out the McGeorge article below!

McGeorge School of Law's moot court program ranked No. 14 in the nation (From left to right) Jaime Bowker, '23; Riley Gervin, '23; Monika Vermani, '23; Abanoub Mikhael, '23; fourth-year law student Allison Formoso; Heather Mills, '23; and Michael Jahangani, '23, were members of McGeorge's Moot Court Honors Board for the 2022-23 academic year.

Introducing the 2023-2024 Moot Court Honors Board! Congratulations, everyone. It's going to be a great year.🏆