Chicago-Kent Team Finishes in Semifinals at the Billings, Exum & Frye National Moot Court Competition

The Chicago-Kent College of Law team of Bora Ndregjoni ’21, Megan Escobosa ’21, and Megan Williams ’21 finished as national semifinalists at the 11th Billings, Exum & Frye National Moot Court Competition sponsored by Elon University School of Law. The team also took home one of the top petitioner brief prizes.

The Chicago-Kent team defeated teams from Baylor University Law School, University of Florida Levin College of Law, George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School, and Florida International University College of Law. The team fell to University of Oklahoma College of Law in the semifinals. The virtual competition, which took place October 22–24, also awarded top brief prizes for petitioner and respondent. The Chicago-Kent team won third place for petitioner brief.

Students argued a case involving a high school association’s policy that requires that athletics teams are expressly designated as “male,” “female,” or “co-ed,” and prohibits biological male and transgender female athletes from competing on teams that are designated as “female.” At issue was whether the policy complies with the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

As a team of 3L students, Williams says that the “team was honored to have advanced to the semifinals during our last and final moot court competition.”

She went on to say that “we called ourselves the ‘dream team’ because we truly worked harmoniously with one another. After advancing past the preliminary rounds into the octofinals, we agreed to just have fun with it and were ecstatic to see how far our hard work was able to get us.”

The team had help preparing for the competition from fellow Moot Court Honor Society (MCHS) members Hayden Dinges ’21, Mary Goers ’21, Sakshi Jain ’21, and Doug Johnson ’21; Jamie Noonan ’20 and Monica Pechous ’20; and Cherish Keller, Chicago-Kent director of appellate advocacy. Keller says the competition had a field of 48 teams, which makes the final result even more impressive. 

“The team worked tirelessly, and it showed in their stellar performances. Elon was MCHS’s first competition during this virtual fall season, so these advocates were virtual competition pioneers of a sort,” Keller says. “But as their strong performances and high finish prove, great advocacy is great advocacy, regardless of medium. I’m very proud of them!”

Williams earned a bachelor’s degree in government, criminal justice, and sociology from New Mexico State University; Escobosa graduated from DePaul University with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy; and Ndregjoni earned her bachelor’s degree in criminology from Florida State University.