The Hon. Scott D. Johnson (from left to right), LSU Law Interim Dean Lee Ann Wheelis Lockridge, Scott Wheat Jr., Sarah Perkins, the Hon. Triche Milazzo, and the Hon. Erin Wilder-Doomes pose for a photo following the final round of the 2022 Dean’s Cup Moot Court Competition.
Second-year LSU Law student Scott Wheat, Jr. won the 2022 Dean’s Cup Moot Court Competition on Monday, March 28, after besting third-year student Sarah Perkins in the competition finals at the Paul M. Hebert Law Center.
“Professor (Jeff) Brooks and the Board of Advocates put on a great competition, and they secured a stellar bench for the final,” said Wheat. “Sarah was terrific last night, and without Professor (John) Devlin’s and (Advocacy Fellow) Danny Bosch’s coaching last semester on the National Moot Court team, last night would have ended differently.”
The distinguished panel of judges who presided over the final round of competition included Jane Triche Milazzo (’92), United States District Judge, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana; Scott D. Johnson, United States Magistrate Judge, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana; Erin Wilder-Doomes (’99), United States Magistrate Judge, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana; and LSU Law Interim Dean Lee Ann Wheelis Lockridge. The finals were held in the Robinson Courtroom and were live streamed. You can watch the finals here.
At LSU Law, Wheat serves as a mentor in the Student Bar Association Mentoring Program, and he is also a member of the National Moot Court Competition team and the John C. Costello Criminal Law Trial Advocacy Competition team.
The Dean’s Cup Moot Court Competition is the last of six internal advocacy competitions that take place throughout the academic year at LSU Law. Students competing for the Dean’s Cup prepare and present appellate oral arguments in a series of real cases that are currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. They use the real briefs prepared by the lawyers in those cases to get ready for oral argument. The case they must argue changes in each round, so the two students in the finals will have argued their way through a gauntlet of some of the most challenging cases currently before the nation’s highest court. The winner of the competition is awarded the Dean’s Cup, a foot-tall solid crystal trophy.
In this year’s final round, Wheat and Perkins presented oral arguments in Shurtleff v. City of Boston. The case asks the court to consider whether the City of Boston’s refusal to allow a private organization to fly a flag bearing a Latin cross on one of three flagpoles in front of Boston City Hall violates the First Amendment.
At the conclusion of the final round, LSU Law Advocacy Programs announced the 48 students in the Class of 2023 who have been selected to be members of the 2022-2023 Board of Advocates.
