Moot Court

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Overview

The Moot Court Board is the principal oral advocacy organization at Villanova’s School of Law.  The Board is chiefly responsible for the administration of the Theodore Reimel Moot Court Competition.  The Board also competes in appellate advocacy competitions at law schools across the country.  Finally, the board assists the legal writing faculty in the administration and judging of 1L oral arguments.

The Reimel Competition is an intra-school tournament in honor of the late Theodore L. Reimel, Judge for the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas from 1953 to 1973.  The competition begins each September with approximately 100 teams of second and third year students, culminating in the spring with the final argument between the competition’s two best teams.  Former jurists for the final round of the Reimel competition have included judges from various U.S. Courts of Appeals as well as Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Samuel A. Alito, Antonin Scalia, Byron C. White, William J. Brennan, Jr., William O. Douglas, and Thurgood Marshall.

Membership on the board is obtained in two ways.  First, students compete each summer in a competition to gain membership.  The competitors must write an appellate brief on a hypothetical problem and argue before a panel of judges from the Moot Court Executive Board.  Second, students may gain an invitation to the board by advancing to the Semi-Final round of the Reimel Moot Court Competition.

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