For Immediate Release
March 26, 2003

Contact:
University of La Verne
1950 3rd Street
La Verne, CA 91750
(909) 593-3511

ULV MOOT COURT TEAM RANKED THE NO. 1 OVERALL TEAM IN PRELIMINARY ROUNDS

ONTARIO, CA (March 26, 2003) – For the second time in three weeks, the University of La Verne College of Law moot court team was ranked the No. 1 Overall Team in preliminary rounds at a national competition. The Hispanic National Bar Association’s National Moot Court Competition was held March 21 and 22 in Dallas, and the ULV team (Henry Nunez, Judith Barillas, Christina Shaffer and student coach Kathy Garcia) prevailed over 27 other schools and also won:

• Semi-Finalist Top Four Team
• Third Place Respondent Brief (Henry Nunez, brief coordinator)

This is the first time ULV has competed in the Dallas national moot court competition, and the team faced tough competition from strong ABA schools. The Top 8 teams after the preliminary rounds were:

1. University of La Verne
2. Northeastern University (Boston)
3. Stanford University
4. Northwestern University (Chicago)
5. University of New Mexico
6. Loyola-Chicago
7. University of Illinois
8. George Washington University

The ULV College of Law moot court team also ranked No. 1 at the Tulane Mardi Gras Competition in New Orleans, Feb. 25-28, 2003.

The ULV team faced some extremely tough competition from some strong ABA-schools. ULV was also the only non-ABA approved school competing, and teams eliminated from the March competition after the preliminary rounds were: Arizona State University, Brigham Young University, DePaul University, Emory University School of Law, Fordham University, Georgetown University Law Center, University of Hawaii, Hofstra University, Inter-American University, Loyola University School of Law, University of Michigan, Nova Southeastern University, University of Puerto Rico, Rutgers (Camden), St. Mary’s University, Suffolk University, SUNY at Buffalo, Texas Wesleyan, Tulane University, Villanova University.

ULV competes in approximately seven national moot court competitions annually. Each competition requires a substantive Appellate Brief, which is judged by a panel of appellate attorneys or judges, and an Oral Argument competition, in which each team of two students from each school argues for a total of 30 minutes on a fictitious appellate problem before a fictitious appellate panel of justices, after which the other school's team argues for an additional 30 minutes. The team judged to have presented the best oral argument then is deemed to have “won” that round, for purposes of advancement in the competition.

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For further information, please contact the ULV Moot Court Coach, Professor Dean McVay,
at (909) 730-5311 or via E-mail: MCVAY@lbbslaw.com.

The University of La Verne College of Law was provisionally approved by the American Bar Association on February 13, 2006.

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