The weekend of March 2nd, 4 members of our DBHS Mock Trial team competed at the National American Moot Court Competition held at UCSB. This is the same competition that 10 students competed at in Chicago two weeks ago.
These 4 students competed all day Saturday in teams of 2. Then, the students competed again in one round of competition Sunday morning before only the EIGHT teams with the best record advanced to a quarterfinal round.
The teams were:
1.Gloria Nien (12), Ashley Cha (12)
2. Sabrina Wu (10), Cassandra Oh (10)
This was the first Moot Court experience for Sabrina and Cassandra and they did very well.
For Gloria and Ashley, they were already impressive in Chicago but nothing compared to how they did in SB. They advanced to the Top 8. In this quarterfinal round, they outscored their competitors by a large margin. In the top 4, semi-final round, they lost by the smallest margin possible. They were amazing! Gloria used no notes, EVER. Ashley had notes on Saturday that she basically stopped referencing on Sunday. In the end, a final ranking of the 30 teams was sent out, Gloria Nien and Ashley Cha ranked second, higher than the team they beat in the semi-finals. They have won a bid to compete in Nationals, April 27 and 28, 2024.
As mentioned in the Chicago email, the participating students have been practicing almost every day since the day we returned from winter break until we drove up to Santa Barbara early Saturday morning.
Moot Court is different from Mock Trial. Moot Court is meant to mimic an attorney making a constitutional argument in front of the Supreme Court. The two man teams are such that each member of the team is arguing a different fictitious law that has violated the Constitution. This year, both issues were a First Amendment, Free Speech, issue. Both members of the team had to write a 10 minute argument both as the Petitioner (claiming that the law is unconstitutional) and as the Respondent (claiming that the law is constitutional). Each student had to learn approximately 15 court cases (actual precedent setting Supreme Court cases). Then, each student presented their 10 minute argument in front of a panel of judges who interrupted them throughout the presentation and the students had to answer whatever questions they were asked: about the fictitious law, any of the 15 court cases, hypothetical scenarios and more. The 4 students were truly remarkable.
With all that DBHS students do, it is worth mentioning that these 4 young women have been juggling yearbook’s final deadlines (Ashley), badminton (Gloria is CAPTAIN and Cassandra is on the team), USB (Sabrina is sophomore class president), all while practicing for Moot Court. Amazing!
There are 2 students still to compete, next weekend through UCSD.
These 4 students competed all day Saturday in teams of 2. Then, the students competed again in one round of competition Sunday morning before only the EIGHT teams with the best record advanced to a quarterfinal round.
The teams were:
1.Gloria Nien (12), Ashley Cha (12)
2. Sabrina Wu (10), Cassandra Oh (10)
This was the first Moot Court experience for Sabrina and Cassandra and they did very well.
For Gloria and Ashley, they were already impressive in Chicago but nothing compared to how they did in SB. They advanced to the Top 8. In this quarterfinal round, they outscored their competitors by a large margin. In the top 4, semi-final round, they lost by the smallest margin possible. They were amazing! Gloria used no notes, EVER. Ashley had notes on Saturday that she basically stopped referencing on Sunday. In the end, a final ranking of the 30 teams was sent out, Gloria Nien and Ashley Cha ranked second, higher than the team they beat in the semi-finals. They have won a bid to compete in Nationals, April 27 and 28, 2024.
As mentioned in the Chicago email, the participating students have been practicing almost every day since the day we returned from winter break until we drove up to Santa Barbara early Saturday morning.
Moot Court is different from Mock Trial. Moot Court is meant to mimic an attorney making a constitutional argument in front of the Supreme Court. The two man teams are such that each member of the team is arguing a different fictitious law that has violated the Constitution. This year, both issues were a First Amendment, Free Speech, issue. Both members of the team had to write a 10 minute argument both as the Petitioner (claiming that the law is unconstitutional) and as the Respondent (claiming that the law is constitutional). Each student had to learn approximately 15 court cases (actual precedent setting Supreme Court cases). Then, each student presented their 10 minute argument in front of a panel of judges who interrupted them throughout the presentation and the students had to answer whatever questions they were asked: about the fictitious law, any of the 15 court cases, hypothetical scenarios and more. The 4 students were truly remarkable.
With all that DBHS students do, it is worth mentioning that these 4 young women have been juggling yearbook’s final deadlines (Ashley), badminton (Gloria is CAPTAIN and Cassandra is on the team), USB (Sabrina is sophomore class president), all while practicing for Moot Court. Amazing!
There are 2 students still to compete, next weekend through UCSD.