Congratulations are in order for the National Environmental Law Moot Court Team – Robby Anderson (‘17), Carrington Jackson (‘17), Katlyn Stricklend (‘17) and student coach and advisor, Haley Cobb (‘18).
The team performed admirably well at the National Competition, which was held Thursday through Saturday, March 2-4, in New York City. Sixty-four law schools competed in this year’s event – the nation’s most prestigious Environmental Law moot court and one of the largest, if not the largest, held under one roof.
The UA Law team faced teams from Berkeley, UC Davis, Columbia, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Baylor, Houston, and William Mitchell and succeeded in advancing to the Quarter-Final Round, with Carrington Jackson winning an award for best advocate. The competition involved a fiendishly complicated problem involving seven issues and three parties on appeal.
Professor William Andreen said he is so proud of the team. The members worked extremely hard; were always up-beat and cooperative; and represented UA Law in excellent fashion. Andreen thanked his co-coach, Professor Heather Elliott, and Dana Waid, who provided support along the way.
Two UA Law teams competed in the ABA National Appellate Advocacy Competition in Philadelphia.
UA Law students Eunji Jo (’17), Briana Knox (’17) and MaryLauren Kulovitz (’17), Allison Garnett, (’17) Sarah Jackson (’17) and Park Wynn (’17) competed in this elite competition, which has six regions and about 200 teams. This year’s case tested a university’s duties under Title IX for off-campus sexual assaults. The teams were assisted by the Law School’s 2L Moot Court Fellows: Nikki Skolnekovich (’18), Caroline Stephens (’18) and Mary Caroline Wynn (’18).
Garnett, Jackson and Wynn won the regional finals and will compete in April in the national finals. Two Alabama Law students finished in the region’s top ten oralists (out of almost 100 advocates): Wynn was awarded fourth best advocate and Knox won eighth best. Jo, Knox and Kulovitz won third prize for team brief.
Alabama law students worked hard, long hours, including brief writing over the exam period and “two-a-day” practices this semester. They represented Alabama well and made Professor Carol Andrews proud.
More than 100 Tuscaloosa middle school students recently visited the Law School.
Students from Hillcrest, Eastwood and Collins-Riverside middle schools participated in the Law School’s first Middle School Open House, a program designed to introduce middle school students to law school.
Dean Mark E. Brandon welcomed the students and encouraged them to take courses on government, as well as courses that teach them how to communicate effectively and think logically.
Throughout the day, students were introduced to legal terminology and procedures. They watched as Alabama law students participated in a mock trial, The Three Bears v. Goldilocks. The Three Bears claimed Goldilocks had bad manners when she entered their home, ate their porridge, slept in their beds and broke a chair. After The Three Bears and Goldilocks testified about the day in question, a jury of middle school students found Goldilocks guilty of bad manners.
The students prepared amicus curiae briefs, which helped Alabama law students argue a moot court case before a panel of judges. The issue: whether YouTube or Instagram is the best social media platform. An attorney for YouTube argued the social media platform provides a more content and is used to teach others how to dance and how to apply make-up, while an attorney for Instagram argued the platform is more popular and provides a safe environment for its users. In a 2-1 vote, the panel ruled in favor of YouTube.
Later, middle school students rehearsed and performed their own mock trial, Little Red Riding Hood v. Big Bad Wolf, learned about legal careers and toured the Law School. The event was sponsored by the the Law School’s Office of Diversity & Inclusion.
Professor Pam Bucy Pierson is quoted in the New Republic about Gov. Bentley’s appointment of state Attorney General Luther Strange to Jeff Session’s Senate seat.
For more, read “The Shady Ascension of Luther Strange.”
Professor Ronald Krotoszynski speaks to Ian Hanomansing about the decision of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to continue blocking President Trump ’s travel ban.
Professor John Gross argues in the Boston College Law Review that the idea that law students could close the existing justice gap overestimates the number of law students enrolled in the nation’s law schools and underestimates the volume of low-income Americans who need legal services.
For more, read “Dispelling the Myth that Law Students Can Close the Justice Gap.”
UA Law students Alyssa Barksdale (‘17), William Logan (‘17 ), Buddy Rushing (‘17 ), and Carter Spires (‘17 ) competed Saturday in the Southern regional of the Saul Lefkowitz Trademark Law Moot Court Competition. The Bruce Siegal Intellectual Property Moot Court Team faced 11 other teams from throughout the Southeast. The team had an outstanding day and won the prize for Best Oral Advocacy Team.
Congratulations to Judge Patrick Higginbotham (’61), the recipient of the 2017 Sam W. Pipes Distinguished Alumnus Award. Higginbotham received the award at the Farrah Law Alumni Society Banquet Friday in Birmingham. The award is given to an outstanding alumnus of the University of Alabama School of Law who has distinguished himself or herself through service to the bar, the University of Alabama and the School of Law.
The Law School also celebrated the permanent endowment of the following funds:
Professor Ronald Krotoszynski speaks to Ian Hanomansing about the Justice Department’s defense of President Trump’s immigration ban.
Jeff Sessions (’73) was confirmed by the United States Senate on February 8 to serve as the 84th Attorney General of the United States.
Born in Selma, Alabama, Sessions received his Juris Doctor from The University of Alabama School of Law after completing his undergraduate education at Huntingdon College in Montgomery. He has represented Alabama in the United States Senate for the past 20 years. In that time, he gave numerous Alabama Law graduates the opportunity to serve as clerks for him on the Committee on the Judiciary.
Modeled like a judicial clerkship, The Clerkship Program allowed law school graduates to work for Sessions for a year as he served as a member of the committee that provides oversight of the Department of Justice and the agencies under its jurisdiction, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security. This provided many Alabama Law alumni a front-row seat at hearings on executive nominations for federal judges and positions in several agencies, including the Department of Justice, the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the United States Parole Commission.
“He had a purposeful program where he valued hiring from the University of Alabama, and he wanted to give graduates of the University of Alabama School of Law a chance to come and serve the state,” said Cynthia Hayden (‘02 ), Director of Government Affairs for Altria Group who clerked for Sessions in 2002-2003. “Because he had the desire to do that, he has given dozens of new lawyers who wanted to come to Washington, D.C. to make a difference for the people living in Alabama a chance to do that.”
Sessions’s Senate office also operated a Summer Clerkship Program for law students. Several alumni, including Brooke Bacak (‘05), clerked for Sessions in the summer of their second year of law school and returned after graduation for a one-year clerkship.
It would have been difficult for Bacak to secure future positions in Washington, D.C. had she not clerked for Sessions. Soon after she arrived in 2005, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announced her retirement, and Chief Justice William Rehnquist passed away. This provided her with the opportunity to be involved in confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justices.
“For me it was the door, the window, the opportunity not to just get started in the lowest ranks, but to be a part of one of the most influential and significant committees in the entire Senate,” said Bacak, former Assistant Dean for Advancement at the Law School. “As soon as we got up there, he wanted us to be in meetings, observing, learning, speaking for ourselves. That kind of training alone, it is just impossible to measure the value of that.”
Working for Sessions required long hours and a strong worth ethic. Even during recess, there was no such thing as a casual Friday. Those who have worked for Sessions are incredibly loyal to him and describe him as a teacher, mentor and friend.
“When we would give him material, he would always make it better,” said Phil Zimmerly (‘08), an associate at Bose McKinney & Evans in Indianapolis, who clerked for Sessions in 2008-2009. “He was certainly a great teacher in terms of watching what he would practice as a Senator.”
While most UA Law graduates worked for Sessions while in law school or after graduation, Prim Formby Escalona (‘08), an associate at Maynard Cooper and Gale in Birmingham, worked for Sessions before attending the University of Alabama School of Law.
An Alabama native and a graduate of Birmingham-Southern College, Escalona went to work for Sessions in 2001, first as a Legislative Correspondent and later as a Legislative Assistant.
After she decided to attend law school, Escalona applied to two schools: Georgetown and Alabama. Sessions wrote a letter of recommendation for her to attend Alabama Law, and she fell in love with the school and its faculty during a campus visit. Sessions later wrote a letter of recommendation on Escalona’s behalf to Judge William H. Pryor, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, where she clerked before serving as the Deputy Solicitor General in the Office of the Attorney General of the State of Alabama.
“People are loyal to (Sessions) because he’s loyal to them,” she said. “That says a lot about him. It’s the mark of a good person.”
