Posted September 25th, 2013 in Top Stories
Nilan Johnson Lewis Renews Sponsorship for the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Moot Court Competition
For the fourth straight year, Nilan Johnson Lewis will sponsor the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Moot Court Competition at William Mitchell College of Law. The local competition will be held on November 2, 2013 at the law school, with the national competition to be held in April 2014 in Washington, D.C.
The Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project is named after former U.S. Supreme Court Justices Thurgood Marshall and William Brennan, and places law school students in high school classrooms to teach Constitutional Law. The program provides a great opportunity for law student to develop leadership and communication skills that will be critical to their development as attorneys. Participating high school students are then invited to the Moot Court Competition, in which they present oral arguments before a panel of guest judges comprised of law professors, practicing attorneys, and judges. Students are given the opportunity to practice their oral advocacy skills and showcase their knowledge and understanding of constitutional law.
Since 2010, Nilan Johnson Lewis has funded both the full-day Moot Court experience as well as future travel expenses for two winning high school students to take their newfound skills to April’s national finals in Washington D.C.
William Mitchell is the only law school to offer the program in Minnesota and is among an exclusive group of 19 to offer the program in the U.S., joining the likes of Yale Law School and the William & Mary Law School.
After winning the 2012-2013 Moot Court Competition held by William Mitchell College of Law, St. Paul Central High School student Ursula Simmer went on to compete in the national competition this past April, in which she took home National Runner-Up honors. Partly due to the success and popularity of the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project at Central High School, the entire St. Paul school district has adopted Constitutional Law and the Bill of Rights into the new 12th grade social studies curriculum for all St. Paul public high schools for the 2013-2014 school year.