Tang Team Domination
Editor: The Thomas Tang Moot Court Team recently swept the regional round of the Thomas Tang Moot Court Competition. For a bit of perspective on what it’s like to compete in Moot Court, we’ll be sharing some perspectives here over the next couple of days.
By: C. Maeve Kendall
For most people, doing something “exciting” means engaging in a stimulating activity like skydiving, attending the Super Bowl, or running the Chicago Marathon (for the record, I have yet to figure out what is exciting about forcing yourself to run until you feel like you are going to lose control of all bodily functions, but you get the idea). For the Thomas Tang Moot Court Team, “exciting” means standing in front of three to five random lawyers who rapidly hurl complicated legal questions at you in an attempt to make you as flustered as humanly possible.
The Tang Team’s excitement came to an apex earlier this month when the marvelous Gabriela Schultz, the fabulous Alana O’Reilly, the tremendous Sean Hennessy, and the sometimes-intriguing Maeve Kendall competed in the regional competition at Kent School of Law. Both Loyola pairs dominated the preliminary rounds, leaving all other teams in the dust. Hennessy won the Best Oral Advocate Award with his co-counsel Alana O’Reilly coming in a close 2nd. Schultz and Kendall won the Best Brief Award and Hennessy and O’Reilly’s brief won 2nd. At the end of the day, Hennessy and O’Reilly placed 1st overall with Schultz and Kendall in 2nd. As the other teams wept into their free Chinese food, all four Loyolans basked in the glow of their conquest.
The semi-final round was held in the Dirksen Federal Building the next morning. While Hennessy and O’Reilly battled it out with the Kent team, Schultz and Kendall rallied for victory against University of Illinois. Of course, neither teams stood a chance against the unstoppable Ramblers: the two teams advancing to the final round were…(drum roll, please)…Loyola and Loyola!
With both teams having already landed their spots in the National Competition, the results of the final round would mean little more than bragging rights (which, mind you, are very valuable rights in the legal world). Nonetheless, the two pairs battled it out on the courtroom floor in front of a panel led by the Honorable Ed Chang. As Judge Chang said himself, the winning team “by a hair” was Schultz and Kendall with Kendall named Best Oral Advocate of the final round.
In the end, all six of the winning plaques that were created for the regional competition came home with the Loyola champs. Some have referred to the Loyola domination as a “sweep,” but I have always preferred a vacuum.
The team re-started practicing this week to prepare for the National Competition held on November 18th and 19th in HOTlanta, Georgia. If the team manages to bring the same energy to Nationals as they did to Regionals, it is unquestionable that all four will indeed “please the court.”
By: Gabriela Schultz
Before classes even began, the Thomas Tang Moot Court team was meeting at the beginning of August to prepare for regionals in October. The four team members – me, my partner-in-crime Maeve Kendall, Sean Hennessy, and Alana O’Reilly – went from excited about being on a moot court team to immediately feeling regret after receiving the problem and looking at the practice schedule. We were not sure what to think, but we decided to go with it.
Practices leading up to regionals were held six days (yes SIX days) a week, including weekends. In order to prepare for regionals our team had to write a brief for one side of the argument and prepare oral arguments for both sides of the argument. Practices were very unpredictable. Some days we were all happy to see each other and be together while some days it was clear we were at our breaking points. There were times that we questioned whether being on this team was a good idea and we never understood the madness behind our coach’s decisions and strategies.
Fast forward to regionals at Kent during the first weekend of October. By this point, we are all saying our oral arguments in our sleep. Maeve and I were going against University of Illinois and William Mitchell law schools. Sean and Alana were facing off against Northwestern and Kent. While the other team was arguing, Maeve and I tried to ease the tension by writing Post-It notes to each other and drawing pictures that may or may not have been referencing the other teams (we will be taking that secret to our graves). As much as we did not admit it, we were nervous.
Friday night was the awards night, and it was the night that we had all been working for. After finding out that we took every award possible – Maeve and I received Best Brief and Sean and Alana received Second Best Brief and First and Second Best Oralist – we finally started seeing that all our hard work was starting to pay off. The next day after both teams won semi-finals and we knew we were going to nationals; there was no question it was all worth it.
So here we go again, back to the grind and preparing for nationals in Atlanta. Who knows how things will go in Atlanta – one of the teams can win it all or we can all be done after preliminary rounds with enough time to go to the Tupac Museum. All we know is that after all the doubt and tears and frustration, we are all still on the team today and if you ask any one of us – we wouldn’t trade this experience for anything.
