My Good Reviews

"You handle questions as well as any appellate lawyer I've ever seen"
- Nashville attorney acting as Moot Court Justice

"Your ability to make concessions without weakening your argument gives you great credibility"
- [Different] Nashville attorney acting as Moot Court Justice

"You really look like a lawyer up there. You know what you're doing, you like what you're doing, and I think you'd be willing to do it all night if we asked."
- Vanderbilt Vice-Chancellor David Williams acting as Moot Court Justice

What's all this about, you say? Well, I just finished the first round of the Vanderbilt Intramural Appellate Advocacy Competition (aka Moot Court). This is an activity for 2nd year law students to participate in a pretend appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Not to be confused with Mock Trial, Moot Court involves writing a brief and delivering two rounds of oral advocacy (one "on-brief" and one "off-brief) to a panel of three "justices". It is a one credit pass/fail activity.

I just finished it, and those are some of the comments I got. I'm not a great writer, but I feel like I did an awesome job with the speaking part. I'm not really one for tooting my own horn, but this is a big accomplishment. It is hard to get accolades at Vanderbilt because of the level of competition.

It is possible that I will advance to the next round of the tournament. If it were only my oral advocacy, I definitely would. Unfortunately, half my grade is my brief, which wasn't exactly good considering I used 2 out of the 30 allotted days to write it. If I make it through the next two rounds, I'd be on the Moot Court Board which administers the competition. It is an honor second only to writing for the Law Review. We'll see.