ABA NAAC Purple Team
ABA NAAC Gold Team
Congratulations to the Law Center’s American Bar Association National Appellate Advocacy Competition “Gold” team, consisting of second-year students Lauren Accardo, Brandon Pierre-Thomas, and Doug Nielsen, who ranked as a finalist team in the NAAC’s regional rounds, which were held Feb. 18-20, 2016 at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, PA. Team member Brandon Pierre-Thomas was also recognized as the tenth place best oralist overall at the competition. The Law Center’s “Purple” team of Leah Brett, Sinnott Martin, and Richard Sprinkle also competed at the Philadelphia regional rounds.
The American Bar Association’s National Appellate Advocacy Competition is one of the “Big Three” moot court competitions held in the United States, with nearly every ABA-accredited law school in the nation fielding a team in the competition. This year’s case file required students to argue, first, whether a police officer has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the locker assigned to him at his place of work and, second, whether, if ever, a police officer’s actions in the course of his employment constitute a hate crime under the federal hate crime statute.
The Law Center’s ABA National Appellate Advocacy Competition teams are coached by Prof. Kathy Flynn Simino (’87).
