Thomas Jefferson School of Law’s Moot Court and Alternate Dispute Resolution teams continue to perform well in competition.
Moot Court Honor Society Competes
Two teams from Thomas Jefferson's Moot Court Honor Society competed at the National Criminal Procedure Moot Court Tournament sponsored by USD and held at the Superior Court in San Diego on November 3 and 4.
Forty-four teams from around the country competed. Thomas Jefferson was represented by Howard Marsilio and James Balch (coached by Katie Hanes) and Sevy Fisher and Katie Grzechnik (Coached by David Vallero). Both teams performed well through a grueling four rounds in two days.
The teams were greatly aided in their preparation by TJSL faculty members Marjorie Cohn, Christopher Guzelian, Alex Kreit and Steve Semeraro, who gave invaluable advice for honing their teams oral arguments. Professors Semeraro and Spiegelman accompanied the teams to the competition.
ADR Society Teams Beat Berkeley & UC Hastings
On November 5 and 6, Elizabeth Chu and Daniel Nguyen (coached by Nick Arcamone) and Scott Greenwood and David Keith (coached by Vako Artinian) traveled to Santa Clara University to represent Thomas Jefferson School of Law’s ADR Society at the ABA's Regional Negotiation Competition. Both teams performed extremely well with Chu and Nguyen beating 19 teams and Scott and David beating 12 teams, including teams from UC Berkeley and UC Hastings, among others.
“Coaching was an incredible experience, and I think Dan and Elizabeth really raised the bar for our team as we continue to improve with each competition,” Nick said. “After weeks of preparation that included over 50 hours of mock negotiation, dozens of Slim Jims, and a lot of crying, it was awesome to see our hard work culminate into a great performance."
The competition, which lasted nearly 12 hours, focused on real estate transactions, with the fact pattern about property sale negotiation and a neighborhood dispute negotiation. The ADR team spent over 80 hours preparing for it and was only 2.76 points away from making the finals.
“This was my fourth ADR related competition I've participated in and ADR in general has been a tremendous learning experience for me,” Nguyen said. “The skills I've learned will serve me well when I graduate and go into the real world.”
