USC’s undergraduate Moot Court team placed third out of more than 470 teams in the United States in their first national tournament on Jan. 18.
Last semester, four students restarted the undergraduate Moot Court team, which had been silent for about 5 years. The team competes in mock appellate court trials and is a registered student organization.
Driven by a shared passion for law and social justice, the four students quickly became friends and prepared for the Moot Court competition with the help of their coach. Shauli Bar-on, a senior majoring in political science and Harmon Gill, a junior majoring in communication were the two founding members to compete.
“We invested our own time and our own resources into this,” Bar-on said. “We self-funded our materials, practices, trips and our registration fees for [the] competition.”
Without any previous experience or training in Moot Court before, the team began to prepare just two and a half weeks before the regional tournament at California State University.
“We watched Moot Court videos, we read new court books. We were even lucky enough to get some advice from some of the competitors at the law school at the Hale Moot Court Honors Program,” Gill said.
Prior to the regional tournament, the four members met with each other nearly every day, which strengthened their understanding of case law, Bar-on said.
“The amount of challenges that we posed to each other and questioning and thinking about the issues differently ... is what led to us understanding the issues back and forth and being able to explain it in a simple way,” Bar-on said.
The team was coached by Antonio Coronel Elefano, an assistant professor of writing with a background in law. He acted as a judge to question team members and help them to refine their arguments.
“Moot Court and appellate advocacy differ from other types of advocacy in that the judge is very active and can ask questions while the advocates are arguing live,” Elefano said.
But Elefano was not solely responsible for their success.
“The lion's share of the work was theirs, they did this, they built this, they bet on themselves and put their own money on the line,” Elefano said, “I just couldn't be more proud of the result, though it's not surprising given the caliber students that they are.”
Gill said they have developed critical and legal thinking skills as well as public speaking skills during the preparation for the Moot Court competitions.
“Thinking like a lawyer is exactly what Moot Court is,” Gill said. “You look at the facts, you look at the law that's related to those facts, and what you do is you apply the law to those facts and it requires building up thinking skills.”
Gill emphasized that people don’t need to have prior experience in Moot Court to join the team. Founding members will train new members and hope the team will continue to be victorious in future tournaments.
“We perceive the training process to be far easier for future members,” Gill said. “We look forward to applying our experience and really laying the groundwork for USC students who can really be responsible for [the] Trojan dynasty in the American League court Association.”