Chicago-Kent places second in the 2017 William E. McGee National Civil Rights Moot Court Competition
The team also received with the first-place best brief award
The Chicago-Kent appellate advocacy team of Christopher Gerardi '18, Anthony Joseph '18 and Erika Rodger '18 finished in second place and won the first-place best brief award at the 2017 William E. McGee National Civil Rights Moot Court Competition. The tournament, sponsored by Mitchell Hamline School of Law, was held February 17 and 18, in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The team won five straight rounds before falling in a hard-fought final bout to a team from Howard University School of Law. The team was coached by third-year students Rebecca Horgan and Kathleen Karnig.
A second Chicago-Kent team also participated in the tournament. Katherine LaRosa '18, a member of that team, was named the best oral advocate for the preliminary rounds. LaRosa and her teammates, Christine Korper '18 and Ben Mahon '18, went undefeated for three rounds before falling in a tight quarterfinal against South Texas College of Law. The team's coaches were third-year students Maxwell Eichenberger and Ryan Suniga.
The competition is named for William E. McGee, the first African American to be appointed chief public defender in the state of Minnesota. Mr. McGee also served as prosecutor for Hennepin County and as executive director at the Legal Rights Center, a nonprofit, community-based organization that represents low-income people of color.
Chicago-Kent's Ilana Diamond Rovner Program in Appellate Advocacy, the umbrella program for many of the law school's moot court activities, was established in 1992. Since then, Chicago-Kent students have won numerous individual honors and regional and national competitions, including consecutive titles in the New York City Bar Association's National Moot Court Competition.
