It's a point that can't be argued: NT's Moot Court team is beginning to make a name for itself. Four students traveled to Long Beach, Calif., to compete in the Western Regional tournament, a competition of up to eight colleges from five different states.

Two NT teams were able to participate in the event, one made up of Joe Rivera, Bowie senior, and Jennifer Poole, Denton senior, and the other of Graham Rainer, Carrollton freshman, and Kinzie Craig, Allen senior. Both teams made it to the semi-finals and ranked third and fourth place overall.

The students were also judged individually on their speaking performances, with Rivera placing second, Rainer placing fifth, Craig placing sixth and Poole placing seventh in speaking overall.

Kimi King of NT's political science department said that she knew the team had the skills to place so well.

"I wasn't surprised in the least," King said. "I knew they were going to do great."

King said that the team almost wasn't able to compete in the tournament because of a lack of funding. She said if it hadn't been for several campus departments, the students probably would have been unable to attend.

"The department of Political Science, the College of Arts and Sciences and the Honors program helped us with funding so we could go," King said. "We just don't have the funding for pre-law programs."

King said the regular tournaments are funded by students' service fees, but national events aren't covered. She said the cost of sending just four students to the regional tournament was close to $2,500. She mentioned that Patrick Henry College, a private school on the east coast and one of the best moot court teams, spends around $15,000 on sending students to tournaments, and that type of funding is becoming more and more common in other schools as well.

NT's moot court team participated in a tournament at the end of October held at a university in Texas, and King said she was very pleased with NT's performance. "We won and won big," King said. "We placed more teams than anyone else."

The team was invited to attend the Western Regional tournament based on their win in the Southwestern conference, but because of the recent growth in moot court teams throughout the country, next year the process will involve actually qualifying for different tournaments. King mentioned that Texas has one of the largest moot court programs when compared to other states. She said that although not all the students on NT's team are pre-law, it was great practice for future occupations.

"Its amazing experience," King said. "It will be the sort of thing every 1st or 2nd year law student will have to participate in, so it gives [our students] a strategic advantage."

King said that students have to try out to participate on the moot court team, and the students prepare for tournaments anywhere from five to 10 hours a week. They are given one case study for the entire year, so it's just a matter of gathering and reviewing information and making a solid argument to give to the judges. This year the tournaments were over a child protective services case.

King helped develop the team five years ago and said she felt it would help establish NT's reputation as a pre-law school.

"The University of North Texas has an amazing law program," King said. "If you're going to be a school that receives national recognition, you need to have a moot court or some equivalent to it."

King said that right now over 100 schools have a moot court team or a court simulation program and the schools that do are the best schools in the country.

"We need to compete," King said. "My goal is to make NT the school you go to in the southwest for pre-law."

Article Tools