Thomas Tang Team Advances to International Finals
February 02, 2009
For the first time in school history, a USF School of Law Thomas Tang Moot Court Competition team advanced to the international finals, which took place in Seattle Nov. 22.
Alan Law 3L (left) and Erin Park 2L (right) with Hon. Edward M. Chen at the Thomas Tang Moot Court Competition in Seattle. Chen, who serves on the bench of the U.S. District Court, Nothern District of California, acted as judge in the competition finals.
The team, comprised of Alan Law 3L and Erin Park 2L, won the Pacific region finals and best regional brief.
"When Erin and I found out we advanced to the international finals in Seattle, we were ecstatic that our weeks of hard work paid off," Law said. "This was one of the most demanding and rewarding experiences for me at USF."
The Thomas Tang National Moot Court Competition, founded in 1993 by the Asian Pacific American Law Student Association of the South Texas College of Law, is administered by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) Law Foundation and the NAPABA Judicial Council. While the competition is open to all law students, it is designed to provide Asian Pacific American students the opportunity to showcase their writing and oral advocacy skills.
The competition not only gave Law and Park a chance to hone brief writing and oral advocacy skills, "but also served as an opportunity to meet judges and other Tang alumni," Law said.
The competition honors the late Hon. Thomas Tang, an advocate for the advancement of minority attorneys who served on the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.