Law school’s moot court teams post strong showings in spring competitions

A successful spring for moot court teams from Elon law came to a close March 28-29, as Elon participated in the John J. Gibbons National Criminal Procedure Moot Court Competition at Seton Hall Law School. Details on this competition and others earlier this semester...

Two Moot Court teams from Elon Law competed Feb. 7-9 at the National Constitutional Law Moot Court competition. Pictured l-r: Amy Holthouser, Sean Olson, Miriam Heard, Ted Johnson, Melanie Crenshaw, Luke Spencer, Associate Dean Alan Woodlief.
The team of Matthew Covington, Lindsey DeGuerre, and Kerri Sigler represented Elon at the Seton Hall competition, which featured 38 teams from across the country. Competing law schools included American, Boston College, Emory, George Mason, Georgetown, Florida State, Mercer, Texas Tech, Texas Wesleyan and the University of Virginia.

The Elon team argued in the preliminary rounds against teams from Georgetown and Texas Tech.  Elon performed exceptionally well against two teams that advanced to the “sweet sixteen” of the competition, had two of the three top briefs in the competition, and one of the top two oral advocates in the competition. In a field comprised largely of third-year students, the Elon team was made up of three second-year students.

“Our students put a tremendous amount of work and energy into preparing for the Gibbons competition, and it showed in their excellent performances at Seton Hall,” said one of the team’s coaches, Alan Woodlief, associate dean and associate professor at Elon Law. “This experience as second-year law students should propel our teams to even greater success next year when they are competing as third years.” Woodlief said most of the teams in the Gibbons competition were comprised of third-year law students.

Earlier this spring, Elon Law sent two teams to the National Constitutional Law Moot Court Competition at Regent University School of Law in Virginia Beach, Va., and two teams to the Charleston School of Law National Moot Court Competition in Charleston, S.C. All four teams represented the school well, and in the Regent competition, Elon was the only school to advance two teams to the quarterfinals, winning the Second and Fourth Best Brief awards. 

In addition to Dean Woodlief, Jim Exum, the law school’s Distinguished Jurist in Residence, and Bonnie McAlister, the school’s Executive Coach in Residence, also worked with the teams. Other faculty members also served on judge panels during practices.