Demanding order in the court

Students from Liberty’s moot court team advance to nationals in California

Ten Liberty University undergraduate students traveled to Regent University to compete in the Mid-Atlantic Regional Moot Court Tournament Nov. 6-7.

Dr. Robert Robertson, Liberty’s undergraduate moot court coach, described the competition as an opportunity for students to experience what it is like to argue before an appellate court such as the Supreme Court. These competitions are often required for first year law school students and provide undergraduate students with an opportunity to practice the skills that
they will need later.

“They get a substantial amount of experience reading cases, fact patterns and evaluating cases in the fact pattern to determine how the law applies to the facts,” Robertson said. “This is the perfect opportunity to begin to learn how to read and analyze cases since they will be doing a substantial amount of that type of reading and analysis when they are in law school.”

Cameron Chotiner, who joined after competing with Liberty’s debate team his freshman year, competed with Liberty’s moot court team for a second time.

“I started doing moot court for the opportunity to get experience for law school,” Chotiner said. “I really wanted to get the opportunity to diversify my skillset. After a year of debate I just really wanted to do something else.”

Each team consists of two students with one student addressing each topic. The teams are then scored based on how well they know the facts of the case, their application of the law to the facts of the case, and how well they deliver their arguments.

One of the unique and challenging aspects of moot court is the judges can interrupt a competitor’s argument at any time to ask them questions about their application of the law.

“For me I love the hot benches, the ones where the judges are asking a ton of questions,” Chotiner said. “It’s really a challenge and a chance for me to step up and have some fun and be
creative with my answers.”

The students have been preparing for the regional tournament since the beginning of the semester by researching and practicing their arguments.

“They had to read through a fact pattern that was extensive,” Robertson said. “Then they had to read and analyze at least nine cases, one or two of the cases being issued by the Supreme Court and the rest being issued by the federal appellate courts. These were extensive cases which took up several pages, and they had to analyze those cases, apply them to the fact pattern and come up with an argument.”

This is Robertson’s first year teaching at Liberty and coaching the moot court team. Prior to coming to Liberty he practiced litigation for 15 years in Louisiana where he argued in front of several of Louisiana’s District Courts of Appeals and the Louisiana Supreme Court. While his past experience has been beneficial for students in preparing their arguments, his recent arrival also meant students had less time to research and to prepare their arguments.

“Normally students that do this competition get the fact pattern and the cases when it comes out in May, and the teams begin to work on it at that time period with assistance from the coaches,” Robertson said. “We started in August and really started practicing in the end of September (and) beginning of October.”

Despite the disadvantage, Robertson still believes the students performed well at regionals. The teams of Noah Luzier, Richard Wiley, A.J. Colkitt and Nathan Wilson all ranked in the top 16 teams. Colkitt and Wilson advanced even further, placing in the top eight teams, earning them a trip to nationals.

“They put together fantastic arguments, and they did extremely well in the tournament,” Robertson said. “We scored high. Even in the competitions that we didn’t necessarily win, we
scored really high.”

Colkitt and Wilson will travel to California State University in January to compete at nationals.

LAPP is a news reporter.