Students are able to develop essential oral and written advocacy skills through Southwestern's annual Intramural Moot Court Competition and Southwestern's Moot Court Honors Program, in which members compete against teams throughout California and the nation.
Intramural Moot Court Competition
As a culmination of
their Legal Research and Writing course, first-year students are presented with
a hypothetical case for which they submit written appellate briefs and then
participate in two required rounds of oral arguments on campus.
Students may
then elect to participate in the third round held in a real court setting. From
this round, 16 students are selected to compete in elimination and final rounds
held in courtrooms of the Los Angeles County Superior Court and the United
States Court of Appeals.
Distinguished members of the bench and bar sit as judges during the competition. The final round is heard by a panel of state supreme court justices and U.S. Court of Appeals judges from around the country.
"Southwestern has, by far, the best first-year
Moot Court Program in the nation."
- Hon. Steven Levinson, Associate Justice,
Supreme Court of Hawaii
Moot Court Honors Program
Students who excel
during the Intramural Competition are invited to interview for Southwestern's
nationally recognized Moot Court Honors Program. Those selected represent
Southwestern in local, regional and national interscholastic competitions as
oralists, brief writers or team coordinators.
Southwestern's Moot Court Honors
Program is recognized as one of the most active moot court programs in the
country, sending teams to over a dozen major competitions annually and garnering
many top awards in written and oral appellate advocacy.
A board of governors made up of experienced moot court team members coordinates both the intramural competition finals and the interscholastic teams.
