Trial Advocacy
Honing your trial skills.
Moot court competition
Western State University offers all its students the opportunity to develop oral and written advocacy skills as early as their second semester in law school. In the Legal Writing and Research classes, students write appellate briefs and practice oral advocacy skills in a series of practice rounds, culminating in an internal appellate moot court competition. Students who excel in the internal competition are invited to join the Moot Court Board whose teams travel and participate in national competitions against teams from other law schools. In recent years, students on Moot Court have participated in competitions in Entertainment Law, Sports Law, Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, Corporations, Business Law and Animal Rights Law, among others.
Recent Western State team successes demonstrate that our students have developed the capacity and dedication to compete with other law schools at top levels.
The Moot Courtroom
Western State’s Moot Courtroom serves as both classroom and advocacy courtroom for training and moot court events. The 50-seat courtroom gives students the opportunity to develop their oral presentation skills in a realistic setting during mock competition drills. Courtroom realism is further enhanced by the “judges” for the internal appellate moot court competitions, which include Western State alumni, practicing attorneys and active judges from the local legal community.
Western State’s Moot Court Program has helped many of our 11,000 alumni become highly accomplished litigators and appellate advocates. During practice sessions and competitions, students are able to develop and enhance the written and oral presentation skills which will be key to their success in their future legal career. The Moot Court Program also gives students the chance to interact professionally with other law students, professors, judges and distinguished practitioners. Most students find the Moot Court experience extremely rewarding, with many competition “thrills” that are not soon forgotten.
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