By Ann W. Parks

Kenny Alce (L’10), a member of Barristers’ Council’s appellate advocacy division, practices his moot court argument.

Third-year students Candace Arthur, Sibongile Mack-Williams, Diamond Hicks and Roy Prather coach second-year students Kenny Alce and Alexander White.

It’s that time of year again — Barristers’ Council is looking for its newest group of mock trial, moot court and alternative dispute resolution stars.

In case you’ve missed those signs around campus, Barristers’ Council is the umbrella organization for the Law Center’s oral advocacy teams. Students in BC’s three divisions — the trial advocacy, appellate advocacy and ADR groups — compete against other schools across the country and around the world.

The annual kickoff event, the Barristers’ Council showcase, showed a curious crowd of mostly 1Ls what oral advocacy is all about as student winners of previous competitions cross-examined a witness in a sports-related bribery case, faced a firing squad of student “judges” in a First Amendment appeal; and negotiated a dispute involving a housepainter who erroneously covered the walls of a house with the wrong color. In lawyering, the stakes are high, and so are the skills; it’s not your high school mock trial team.

“Your job is to control the courtroom,” Brent Wisner (G’09, L’10) told the crowd, as he proceeded to cross-examine a witness in the mock trial demonstration. 

Students may join one of the three Barrister’s Council divisions through three intra-school competitions held this spring. The first round of the William H. Greenhalgh competition — the means by which students earn a spot on one of the school’s trial advocacy (mock trial) teams — began Friday, January 23 with direct examinations and opening arguments; the finals will conclude February 13. Trial advocacy, of course, hones lawyering skills at the trial court level of the judicial process, with a judge, jury and witnesses.

“It’s cliché, but there’s a huge difference between studying evidence in the classroom and actually knowing whether it’s prudent to make an objection to certain specific pieces of evidence in a trial,” says Jonathan Ference (L’10), a member of the trial advocacy/mock trial division who also served as the National White Collar Crime Competition director this past fall.

Jill Streja (L’09), the director of the trial advocacy/mock trial division who won the Greenhalgh as a first-year student, says the experience confirmed her interest in litigation and helped to build skills that she later refined in her clinic and law firm work. “I think every student grows and benefits just from the experience of trying out for any of the Barristers’ Council teams,” she says.

Moot court

On January 16, 3L students Candace Arthur, Sibongile Mack-Williams, Diamond Hicks and Roy Prather put 2Ls Kenny Alce and Alexander White through their paces as they practiced for the Frederick Douglass Moot Court Competition, an interscholastic competition held regionally in February and nationally in March. In moot court — unlike mock trial — each student prepares an appellate brief which he or she delivers from a podium to a panel of judges, without a jury.

The four student judges in this case were a bit more relaxed than any you’ll find in a federal courtroom, eating snacks and sipping coffee on a cold day in Gewirz as they tried to punch holes in Alce and White’s oral arguments in an employment discrimination case. Mack-Williams, Prather, Arthur and Hicks, working in pairs, took both first and second place in last year’s Frederick Douglass Moot Court Competition National Tournament.

“The best moment for me was having our two teams compete against each other in the final round at nationals,” said Mack-Williams, who along with Prather ended up winning the 2008 competition. “As our coaches reminded us before the final round — either way, we were taking home the National Championship.”

First-year students join the appellate advocacy/moot court team through Georgetown’s Robert J. Beaudry competition beginning in March. The finals will be judged by a prestigious panel of real federal and state judges (stay tuned).

Su Jin Kim (L’09), the managing director of Barrister’s Council, notes that young lawyers normally wouldn’t gain practice as appellate lawyers for years, if at all. She herself joined the moot court/appellate advocacy team to gain confidence in this area. “I thought that moot court would best prepare me to think on my feet quickly,” she says.

And if thinking on your feet before a panel of actual judges in your first year of law school leaves you cold, you can try out for the third Barristers’ Council division — alternative dispute resolution. The ADR qualifying competition, which is open to all nongraduating students (including LL.M.s, if they will be around next year) gets underway in February.

“Barristers’ Council allows its members to represent Georgetown in competitions across the nation and the world and to compete against other law schools,” said Kimberly Witherspoon (L’09), director of the appellate advocacy/moot court program, who notes that the Georgetown program is rated among the best programs in the nation. “It has a proven track record of success.”