Wayne Law third-year students, from left, Blair Gould, Wade Fink, Kathleen Westfall, Kaitlyn Morin, Lauren Saad and Kevin McQuillan competed in the American Bar Association National Appellate Advocacy Competition Regionals.
One of Wayne State University Law School’s National Moot Court Teams made it to the final round in the American Bar Association National Appellate Advocacy Competition Regionals held Feb. 27 through March 2 in Washington, D.C.
The team of Wade Fink of Bloomfield Hills, Blair Gould of Dayton, Ohio, and Kathleen Westfall of Northville reached the final round of competition before falling to a team from Charleston School of Law, who will advance to the ABA NAAC finals in Chicago in April.
Fink earned an individual award for being 10th in Oral Advocacy out of 72 participants.
“While we were disappointed to come up just one vote short of winning the final round, we hope we made Wayne Law proud,” Fink said.
Said Westfall: “It was a very rewarding experience, and we learned a great deal about how to advocate for our ‘clients’ while debating relevant legal issues that exist today.”
Moot Court faculty advisor Amy Neville traveled to the competition with the two Wayne Law teams.
“The team that reached the final round, along with the team of Kevin McQuillan (of Toledo, Ohio), Kaitlyn Morin (of Monroe) and Lauren Saad (of New Baltimore), displayed simply outstanding advocacy skills,” Neville said. “Together, these teams were a perfect reflection of everything that is great about our students at Wayne Law. They are extremely bright and talented, as well as gracious in both victory and defeat. Their performance both inside and outside the courtroom is cause for all of us to be quite proud of them.”
The teams are composed of six third-year students who are selected through competitive tryouts. They work for five months writing briefs and practicing to prepare for the competition, which involves a hypothetical appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. This year, the problem involved the reach of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the use of unpaid interns under the Fair Labor Standards Act, both issues upon which the federal circuit courts have disagreed.
Thirty-six teams competed in the Washington, D.C., NAAC regional. Four advanced to the championship rounds to be held in Chicago.
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