Law School National Moot Court Team Wins Regional Title

The Law School’s National Moot Court Competition teams continued the program’s success in achieving outstanding results at the Region 14 tournament, with one team making it to the semi-finals and the other emerging as regional champions.

The Region 14 competition was hosted by the University of South Dakota Law School in Sioux Falls on Nov. 16-17. The Respondent team (3Ls Allison Chadwick, Kelly Nizzari, and Brendan Johnson) completed a clean sweep of the awards: Region 14 champions; best Respondent brief; best overall brief; and best oral advocate in the finals (Nizzari).

The Respondent team defeated a team from the University of Iowa in a spirited, well-argued final round to take the championship. As a result of the win, the Respondent team advances to the national final rounds that will be held in New York City on Jan. 28-Jan. 31, 2019.

The Petitioner team (3Ls Ted McGee, Caroline Schmitz, and Paul Dimick) went a perfect 4-0 through the preliminary rounds and quarter-finals. The team advanced to the semi-finals, where they suffered their only loss of the tournament to their classmates on the Law School Respondent team.

The teams were coached by adjunct professors Kyle Hardwick ’13 and Andrew Leiendecker ’17. Other local attorneys and Clinical Professors Brad Clary ’75 and Chris Soper judged practice rounds and provided additional valuable feedback.

In the last 37 years, 54 out of 74 Minnesota Law teams in the competition have qualified for the region quarterfinals, 36 have qualified for the region final four, and 22 have gone on to the national finals. This is the sixth time a Minnesota Law team has outright won the Region 14 tournament and this year’s Respondent team will be the 13th team in the last 17 years to go to New York.