Moot Court

The program incorporates a range of opportunities to practice hands-on oral advocacy and brief writing skills, while also giving students, alumni, and practitioners a forum for networking and collaboration.

Students first participate in Moot Court through their Legal Research, Writing, and Analysis class where they research and write a complex legal brief. After being coached by our legal writing faculty and a Moot Court student case counsel, the students end the semester with an oral argument in front of visiting judges.

Students who excel in the program join the advanced moot court programs as student leaders in their second year. Some become case counsel and work directly with a member of the legal writing faculty to both develop the problem that the first year students will work on and assist in the classroom. Other students join one of our prestigious and very successful advocacy teams. We send teams to competitions, including the National Moot Court Competition and the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition. 

The 2016-2017 academic year was a successful year for the USF Moot Court competition teams. One of our Lefkowitz competition teams won the Saul Lefkowitz Moot Court Competition Nationals. Along the way, they also placed first in Oral Arguments in Nationals and placed first overall in the Lefkowitz Western Regionals. Further, our Thomas Tang competition team advanced to the National rounds in San Diego where they finished in the top eight. Our Tang team also placed first in Oral Advocacy for the National rounds. Our National Criminal Procedure Tournament team earned second place in the Best Respondent Brief category. They also finished as quarterfinalist in the competition. Finally, our Robert Wagner Moot Court competition team placed first in Oral Arguments for the petitioner side. We are proud of our teams’ accomplishments this past academic year.