Thank you to everyone who participated in the 11th National Energy and Sustainability Moot Court Competition at the WVU College of Law. We were pleased to welcome 36 teams from 26 schools -- our largest field ever -- for our first ever virtual competition. The final four teams came from the George Washington University Law School, Lewis & Clark Law School, St. John's University School of Law, and the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law. St. John's and Utah advanced to the final round, and Utah won the competition.
We appreciated everyone's patience as we held the competition in a virtual format for the first time. That format change necessitated many changes to our normal operations and brought up new challenges, including collecting the judges' scores for each round electronically and entering them into the spreadsheets we use for ranking the teams. With so many moving parts and a steep learning curve, we made mistakes, and we apologize for those. We wish to extend a special apology to Team #39 from the Texas Tech University School of Law, which should have advanced to the Round of 16 but was inadvertently eliminated early from the competition. Emily Fouts from Team #39 was among the top 5 oralists after the preliminary rounds, and their brief was among the top 10 briefs. Texas Tech clearly qualified for the Round of 16; we apologize to the Texas Tech team for their exclusion, and congratulate them on their strong performance in the preliminary rounds.
We are actively working to improve our scoring practices with respect to both accuracy and transparency and will be announcing new procedures prior to next year's competition.
Welcome
Brice Phillips
Chief Justice, WVU Moot Court
Lauren Cyphers
Chair, Administrative Support
Daniel Granfield
Bailiff Liaison
Introduction of Judges and Finalists
Brice Phillips
Final Arguments
University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law
Natalie Beal, Stephanie Hanawalt
Coach: Nate Mitchell
-v.-
St. John’s University School of Law
Molly Sheehan, Stephanie Lamerce
Coaches: Ashley Williams, Danielle Ullo
Judges Deliberation and Decision
Presentation of Awards
Brice Phillips
James Van Nostrand
Director, Center for Energy and Sustainable Development
Professor of Law
Thank you for a great competition! See you next year.
11th Annual National Energy and Sustainability Moot Court Competition
March 10-13, 2021
Brice Phillips — Chief Justice
Blake Humphrey — Judge Liaison
Lauren Cyphers — Chair, Administrative Support
Daniel Granfield — Bailiff Liaison
The organizers would like to extend special thanks to:
Hon. Omar J. Aboulhosn
United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia
Hon. Michael J. Aloi
United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia
Hon. Thomas S. Kleeh
United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia
Hon. Frank W. Volk
United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia
John E. Taylor
Interim Dean and Professor of Law
James Van Nostrand
Director of the Center for Energy and Sustainable Development and Professor of
Law
Samantha Stefanov
Office Administrator