Moot Court wins at Baylor
Casey Rinaldi
Issue date: 3/18/10 Section: News
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Four of the top 10 speakers of the tournament were from the ASU team.
Jervonne Newsome, a senior philosophy major from Jonesboro and team captain, was named top speaker. Abram Skarda, a junior political science major from Des Arc, placed third; Lilia Pacheco, a sophomore political science major from Jonesboro finished seventh; and Steven Densmore, a freshman political science major from Jonesboro, who was competing in his first tournament, finished as the fourth-place speaker.
"I am particularly proud of Steven Densmore and Eric Fiszer," said Richard Wang, chair of the Department of Political Science, said in an ASU news release. "These two students wanted to compete even though they had just started moot court a few weeks ago."
Fiszer is a freshman political science major from Brookland.
"It was a tough tournament with some very good teams there. We had a very good tournament, sometimes everything goes your way," said Hans Hacker, coach of the ASU Moot Court team. "We prepared effectively and we did the best we could. It turned out well for us and we sent our team captain, Jervonne Newsome, out with a win."
The practice of moot court involves students arguing a fictitious case as if they were before the Supreme Court.
ASU uses six students on a team in their mock trials, with 12 students total.
Tournaments are traditionally held at law schools and are judged by a panel of third year law students, professors, lawyers and judges, who make up a five-judge panel.
"It [moot court] brings together everything we teach in the liberal arts and combines skills of thinking creatively, researching thoroughly, writing clearly and arguing concisely," Hacker said about the benefit of moot court for other students at ASU. "The whole endeavor is the best thing I do at the university. It is useful for any student pursuing any degree; thinking on your feet while being questioned intensely is a very important skill to cultivate."
Hacker holds great expectations for next season, but insists that his new members must first be trained in "the art of appellate advocacy," or arguing a case on appeal.
"My teams are well-trained, always competitive and focused on the learning not the winning, which makes them deadly opponents. We have two of the best speakers I have ever coached coming back [Lilia Pacheco and Abram Skarda], and we have some really good new members. I'm excited about next year," he said.
Hacker offered praise of his team's accomplishments and said he looks forward to an interesting future.
"I am privileged to coach these students. They always work hard, they are dedicated to the craft of moot court, they compete fiercely, and whatever happens, we have a whole bunch of fun doing it," he said.
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