U of A Law Team Advances to National Moot Court Finals

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From Left, 3L Final Round participants in the Region IX rounds of the 64th Annual National Moot Court Competition. Arkansas third year law students Daniel Yim, Mallory Langston, & Valerie Morato; the Honorable Associate Justice Courtney Hudson Goodson of the Arkansas Supreme Court; U.S. Magistrate Judge Erin Setser of the Western District of Arkansas; the Honorable Judge Kenneth Hixson of the Arkansas Court of Appeals; the Honorable Lavenski Smith of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals; the Honorable Chief Judge Robert Gladwin of the Arkansas Court of Appeals; Creighton law students Jimmie Pinkham III, Steven Hennelly, & Brittany Faulkner.

University of Arkansas School of Law third-year law students Mallory Langston, Valerie Morato and Daniel Yim qualified for the National Finals in the Region IX rounds of the 64^th Annual National Moot Court Competition. The competition took place Nov. 14-15, in the Washington County Courthouse in Fayetteville.

The Arkansas team was the runner-up team to Creighton third-year law students Brittany Faulkner, Steven Hennelly and Jimmie Pinkham. Pinkham was awarded Best Overall Oralist for the competition, and St. Louis University students Carolyn Theis, Alexandria Burns and Jeffrey Klaus were awarded the Best Brief.

Both the winning team and the runner-up team will represent Region IX in the National Finals in New York City in February 2014. Arkansas Professor Dustin Buehler and attorney Holly Lar of the Rogers office of Mitchell Williams coached the team. 

This year's regional competition was sponsored by the University of Arkansas School of Law and the 2013-2014 Board of Advocates with considerable support from Circuit Court Judges William A. Storey, Doug Martin, Beth Storey-Bryan and Mark Lindsay, who made their courtrooms and anterooms available for competition rounds and logistics.

The Region IX rounds brought together second- and third-year law students from the Universities of Kansas; Missouri, Columbia; Missouri at Kansas City; Nebraska; Creighton; Washburn; St. Louis University; and two home teams from the University of Arkansas both of which were coached by Buehler and Lar. 

Arkansas' second-year student team, comprised of Sarah Jewell, Blake Montgomery and Mark-David Pirtle, emerged as the second seed after two preliminary rounds. They were upset in the quarter-finals by a Creighton team. 

Quarterfinal round competitors included two teams from the University of Arkansas, two from St. Louis University, two from Creighton University and a team each from the University of Oklahoma and the University of Kansas. St. Louis University won the best brief honors; Best Oralist in the final round went to Jimmie Pinkham of Creighton University.

Presiding over the championship round was a distinguished panel of federal judges and Arkansas appeals judges including the Honorable Lavenski Smith of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals; U.S. Magistrate Judge Erin Setser of the Western District of Arkansas; the Honorable Associate Justice Courtney Hudson Goodson of the Arkansas Supreme Court; the Honorable Chief Judge Robert Gladwin and the Honorable Judge Kenneth Hixson of the Arkansas Court of Appeals.