Harlan Fiske Stone Moot Court: Oral Arguments

November 4, 2010

Oral Arguments

Oral Arguments will take place on Nov. 15th - 17th. Each team will participate in two oral arguments. Please refer to the oral argument schedule to determine what days and in which rooms you will be arguing.

Oral arguments begin at 7:45 p.m. and should run until about 9:15 p.m. Please make sure to be in your room at 7:30. Also note that some of the rooms this year are in Big (WJW) and Little (WH) Warren.

Each argument may be a maximum of twenty minutes long. Petitioner may reserve up to five minutes of their time for a rebuttal to be delivered after Respondent's argument.

The order of arguments is as follows:

Cardozo   I                  (15-20 minutes)
McKenna I                  (20 minutes)
Cardozo   I Rebuttal    (0-5 minutes)

Cardozo   II                  (15-20 minutes)
McKenna II                  (20 minutes)
Cardozo II Rebuttal    (0-5 minutes)

When the last participant has concluded their presentation, you will be asked to step out of the room so that the judges can fill in the score sheets. When they are done, they will provide you with feedback on your argument and brief.

Please join us afterward for a wine and cheese reception in the lobby of JG.

About the Competition

The Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison Moot Court Program

About the Harlan Fiske Stone Moot Court Final Arguments

The Harlan Fiske Stone Moot Court final arguments, part of the Paul Weiss Moot Court Program, are the culmination of a three-round elimination competition in appellate advocacy.

This year, 56 students entered the competition. In the qualifying round, held during the fall semester, students briefed one of two issues on behalf of either the appellant or the United States, and presented their positions in oral arguments before panels composed of alumni practitioners and professors.

On the strength of their brief and oral argument scores, 20 competitors advanced to the spring semifinal rounds. There, they again briefed and argued a side of the same case. On April 7, the four students with the highest scores in the spring competition present their final arguments to our distinguished panel of judges, who will award the Lawrence S. Greenbaum Prize for the best oral presentation in the final round. Professor Philip Genty and Steven Zundell ’14, director of this year’s Harlan Fiske Stone competition will recognize the best final round brief.

This year marks the 89th anniversary of the Stone Moot Court, which was founded at Columbia Law School in 1925 by the Story Inn—a chapter of the legal fraternity Phi Delta Phi. The competition is named in honor of Harlan Fiske Stone (1872–1946), who was a member of the Story Inn while a student at the Law School.

Stone was named dean of Columbia Law School in 1910. He served in that capacity until 1924, when President Calvin Coolidge appointed him attorney general of the United States. He was named to the U.S. Supreme Court the following year and was elevated to chief justice in 1941.

This program is made possible by the generous support of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.

Materials

November 4, 2010

Oral Arguments