Second-year Duquesne Kline School of Law students and Appellate Moot Court Board members James Vinski, Logan Bennett, and Samantha Tipon won first place in the National Moot Court Competition in Law in Religion hosted by Touro Law Center in New York on April 2-3. Third-year law students Antonia Gelorme, Kebron Assefa, and Eva Campion also competed at the competition, finishing Third Place overall and winning the First-Place Best Brief award.
Twenty teams from across the country competed at the prestigious Law & Religion Competition over a period of two days, including teams from Baylor, Rutgers, University of New Hampshire, and New York Law School.
After arguing on and off brief five times, Duquesne Kline's team of James Vinski (2L), Logan Bennett (2L), and Samantha Tipton (2L), emerged as First Place champions and went undefeated in the competition. During the Final Round, the second-year team argued the tough Respondent position and defeated a strong team from New York Law School to be named the competition's winner by unanimous decision. The Final Round was presided over by Judge Richard J. Sullivan of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; Judge Gary R. Brown, United State District Judge for the Eastern District of New York; and Judge Mark D. Cohen of the New York State Court of Claims (ret.). All of the Final Round judges spoke incredibly highly of the students' excellent advocacy and effectiveness, as well as their impressive use of case law, facts, and reasoning during their arguments.
Duquesne-Kline's second team also made an exceptional showing at the competition. Antonia Gelorme (3L), Eva Campion (3L), and Kebron Assefa (3L) placed Third overall in the competition, and were awarded the First-Place Best Brief out of twenty briefs. The third-year team argued exceptionally on and off brief over two full days of competition and was undefeated through the Quarterfinal Round. The third-year team (Gelorme, Assefa, Campion) narrowly missed advancing to the final round after a hard-fought battle in the Top-Four Semi-Final Round against the Duquesne Kline second-year team (Vinski, Bennett, Tipton), after which the second-year team prevailed by split decision. During the Semi-Final Round, the panel of three judges praised all six Duquesne-Kline student competitors for their persuasive advocacy, strong depth of knowledge, and professionalism.
Both teams were coached by Appellate Moot Court Board alumni Eric Wyant and Devon Ferris. Congratulations to all of the students in an outstanding performance!
The Appellate Moot Court Board is under the direction of Prof. Erin Karsman who is also the director of the Thomas R. Kline Center for Judicial Education.
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