What a weekend! Three moot court teams were in action this weekend\u2014two in Washington, D.C. and one in Chicago\u2014and there is much to report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Washington, D.C., the team of Valeriya Gilmutdinova<\/em> and Clayton Smith<\/em> brought home\u2014for the seventh<\/em> time\u2014a championship win<\/strong> at the National Veterans Law Moot Court Competition. Since the competition began in 2009 (which Stetson won), only Baylor (at five wins), comes close to Stetson\u2019s record. (And yes, the Chief Justice in the final round was none other than Stetson\u2019s own, Chief Judge Mike Allen.) And to top it off, our very own Clayton Smith<\/em> became the seventh<\/em> Stetson advocate to win the Best Oral Advocate award<\/strong>. (Clayton <\/em>was the top advocate out of the 56 advocates who participated.) Congratulations to Valeriya<\/em> and Clayton<\/em>! Many thanks to our friends in the VLI who helped the team work through some challenging constitutional and veterans benefits issues. A special thanks to the team\u2019s co-coach, Christopher Gieger. And to Logan West\u2014this was for you!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also in D.C., Patricia Bishop Hamlin, Brendan Fink<\/em>, and Emma Vis<\/em> participated in the 2025 Wechsler First Amendment Moot Court Competition. The unique rules for this competition require advocates to learn multiple issues for both parties, which the team did beautifully under the guidance of Professor Okuno. (Thank you, Professor Okuno!) The team battled it out, eventually losing a very close round in the octofinals<\/em> to a team that has won the competition a number of times in the previous years. But Stetson earned two additional recognitions\u2014the team had the fourth best brief<\/em> and Emma was the fourth best oralist<\/em>. Congratulations to Patricia<\/em>, Brendan,<\/em> and Emma<\/em>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n And finally in Chicago, the team of Logan Wallen, Tara Basile,<\/em> and Beliz Esen<\/em> argued at the 2025 Appellate Lawyers Association Moot Court Competition (ALA). Logan and Tara were part of last year\u2019s ALA team that lost in the semifinal round by less than a quarter of a point. Needless to say, the team’s focus was on arguing every round that they could. And the team did just that\u2014through preliminary rounds, elimination rounds, all the way to the finals. Logan, Tara<\/em>, and Beliz <\/em>earned the Second Place Overall Team award<\/strong>. And the recognition did not stop there\u2014Logan<\/em> was recognized as the Second Place Advocate<\/strong> out of a field of over 50 advocates. Congratulations, Logan, Tara<\/em>, and Beliz<\/em>! And a special thanks to the team\u2019s coach, Jeremy Bailie!<\/p>\n\n\n\n What a weekend; congratulations! And this cannot be said enough\u2014thank you to all the professors, administrators, alums, and Moot Court Board members who helped these teams prepare. Go Stetson! What a weekend! Three moot court teams were in action this weekend\u2014two in Washington, D.C. and one in Chicago\u2014and there is much to report. In Washington, D.C., the team of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faculty","category-staff","category-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stetson.edu\/law\/docket\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stetson.edu\/law\/docket\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stetson.edu\/law\/docket\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stetson.edu\/law\/docket\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stetson.edu\/law\/docket\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stetson.edu\/law\/docket\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78503,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stetson.edu\/law\/docket\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78502\/revisions\/78503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stetson.edu\/law\/docket\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stetson.edu\/law\/docket\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stetson.edu\/law\/docket\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Professor Bowman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"