By Lauren Kendrick/reporter
The newly formed moot court team on NW Campus became the first community college to take part in competition at the University of North Texas in Denton March 6-7.
Moot court teams argue the one fictitious case released each year. Each team is expected to argue each side of the case and do not know which side they will be arguing for each round, the petitioner or the respondent.
“We practiced for four weeks, the first two as the petitioner and the last two as the respondent, and chose to argue as the respondent in the last round as that was what we most recently practiced,” said team member Kristina Roberts.
Zachary Frohlich, speech instructor and one of TCC’s moot court coaches, said they received the topics in August and formed teams in January.
The team members came from the Students of Law and Politics organization on NW Campus. The team held a small competition for three teams. The winners earned the right to participate in the UNT competition.
“We had much less time to prepare for the case,” Roberts said.
The other colleges’ moot court teams included seasoned upperclassmen from major universities who began preparing in August. Roberts and her teammate, Megan Nieves, had only four weeks to prepare for the competition. Teams from four-year colleges, including Texas A&M, participated in this competition, and 48 teams represented 14 universities.
“The UNT competition was very intimidating and challenging,” Roberts said.
In its first major competition, the NW team won three rounds and lost three rounds, placing in the middle of the 48 teams. Roberts was approached by Texas Wesleyan’s coach and invited to participate with its moot court team next year.
Roberts, who plans on attending Texas Wesleyan in the fall, is majoring in forensics. She said she has gained a love of law and politics through her moot court experience and also plans to take some law classes at Texas Wesleyan.
Nieves won a drawing for a scholarship for the Kaplan LSAT/GRE course worth more than $1,500. The library sciences major said she plans to take the GRE, and the scholarship will be helpful.
“Everyone really wanted to win the scholarship,” Roberts said. “It was kind of funny that Megan won because we were the smallest school there.”
“I was very happy and pleased with their efforts and the results,” Frohlich said about his team’s first major competition.
The UNT competition was the last for the year, but Frohlich hopes to form another team next year. Since Roberts and Nieves are moving to different schools, new participants will be needed for next year’s team. Frohlich wants to form a team earlier so they are able to compete in more events next year with more time to prepare.
Anyone with questions or interest in possibly participating in moot court competitions next year should contact Frohlich at 817-575-7667 or through e-mail at zachary.frohlich@tccd.edu.
