Minnesota Law will again send a team of students to compete in the Hicks Thomas LLP Moot Court National Championship, one of the most prestigious invitational moot court tournaments for U.S. law schools. Before 2024, the Law School had never qualified for the National Championship.
Hosted by the University of Houston Law Center in January, the event recognizes the top moot court programs in the country. Each year, 16 schools are invited according to a comprehensive, points-based assessment of team performance in competitions over the previous academic year. That determination is made by Houston’s Blakely Advocacy Institute, which ranked Minnesota No. 12.
“It’s effectively the only invitation-only moot court competition in the country,” says Randall Ryder ’09, director of the Minnesota Law Moot Court Program. “They only invite the top 16 schools in the country — the best of the best. It is considered, and all of us recognize it as, the moot court national championship.”
In late January of 2025, the Minnesota team reached the quarterfinals for a top-eight finish and won third place for best brief.
Success Breeds Success
“Qualifying for the National Championship reflects the deep and talented pool of students and coaches in the moot court program. A school needs to excel at multiple competitions in order to qualify. It’s the ultimate team effort,” says Ryder.
In the 2025-26 season, the Joseph P. and Carol Z. Sullivan Health Law Moot Court Competition Team finished third overall and won best brief and best oralist. The National Moot Court Team (distinct from Houston) won its regional competition in Wisconsin and advanced to the quarterfinals at the national rounds in New York City. The Sports Law Team won the Tulane Mardi Gras competition in New Orleans, taking best oralist, second-best brief, and third-best oralist. The Environmental Moot Court Competition Team reached the final round of the national competition hosted by Pace University. The ABA National Appellate Advocacy Team won its regional in Philadelphia, won best oralist, and advanced to the national rounds in Chicago for the second consecutive year. The Federal Bar Association Thurgood Marshall Team won best oralist and advanced to the quarterfinals.
For students who participate in moot court competitions, the experience has proven invaluable.
Pia Puentespina ’26 was a member of the National Moot Court Team that won the Wisconsin regional and excelled at the national rounds. Puentespina is beginning her legal career as a litigator at Maslon in the fall. “I feel confident entering the profession because of that experience,” she says. “If I hadn’t had that practical experience, I might feel a little bit lost. But now, I feel like I can take on similar tasks if they come my way.”
Seasoned Coaches
One of the strengths of the Minnesota program is its alumni who serve as coaches. “We have an amazing ‘circle of life’ now where many of our coaches have come from the program,” Ryder says. “They know what we expect, how we prepare our students, and they’ve also been successful. So, it’s the old ‘success tends to breed success.’”
One of those coaches, Aidan Zielske ’21, has worked with the National Moot Court Team each year since graduating. Now a commercial litigator at Fox Rothschild in Minneapolis, Zielske says moot court was “one of the most valuable things I did in law school.”
As a coach, Zielske says she focuses on helping students polish skills and styles they may have already developed in previous moot court practice as 2Ls. “Maybe they’ve also done arguments before courts through clinics, so they often come with a pretty well-defined style of advocacy,” she says. “Then we just work to refine small things and talk about how to communicate the legal substance of their argument in the most persuasive way they can.”
While development of lawyerly skills is important, Puentespina says moot court also provides broader, more intangible benefits. Like many students, she struggled with self-doubt as she handled the rigors of law school and her own “loud inner critic.”
In the end, her moot court experience helped build confidence, but it also led to an unexpected realization.
“There’s something about knowing that you’re representing your school,” Puentespina says. “It’s beyond yourself. It’s not just about what grade you’re going to get. It’s about ‘How does this reflect on the school?’ It made me feel like I’m doing something important. And not just for myself.”