Law School students barely could conceal their nervousness as the judges asked them questions to defend their arguments at the 2003 Moot Court Competition.
Competing in pairs, University law students Charles Penrod and Curt Rome argued against respondents Christie Chapman and Lisa Gintz during the mock court competition Thursday.
Law Professor John Devlin said the students used the pending affirmative action case, Grunter v. Bollinger, for the court in which a white applicant to Michigan Law alleges that the school demonstrated racial discrimination by admitting less-qualified minority students before her.
Penrod and Rome argued in favor of a student who was denied admission to the hypothetical Euphoria Law School. Chapman and Gintz defended Euphoria Law School by stating the school was increasing its diversity by choosing minority students.
“With a diversified campus you get a lot of different opinions and that is what getting an education is about,” Gintz said.
At an honors banquet held after the mock hearing, Judge Watson announced Chapman and Gintz as the 2003 Tullis Moot Court Winners. The team members will have their names inscribed on a plaque outside the courtroom at the Law School.
Devlin said the moot court allows second-year law students to improve advocacy and litigation skills. Devlin said it is “the traditional intra-LSU competition to identify the best advocates.” The Tullis Competition is one of many moot court activities law students participate in throughout the year, he said.
The judges were Sylvia Cooks of the Third Circuit Court of Appeal, Jack Watson, retired associate justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court, and Stephen Reidlinger, U.S. Magistrate Judge, Middle District of Louisiana.
Judge Cooks said the students who competed were of superior quality, and she would gladly have them in her court.
Before each finalist argued before a panel of judges, they wrote a brief of their argument and submitted it to the panel. The judges based their decision on the oral argument and the brief.
Law Professor Paul Baier said the competition was named in honor of the late dean emeritus of the University Law School, and moot court has existed at LSU since it opened in 1936.
Second-year law student Dallon Bush, newly-elected chairman of the Moot Court Board, said the school wants to open the Tullis competition to pre-law undergraduates to compete.
Bush said the law school will host the regional competition next year before the national Moot Court Competition.