New Haven Cleans Up At Moot Court Contest

On April 5th and 6th, four New Haven public high school students traveled to Washington, D.C. to compete in the National Marshall-Brennan Moot Court Competition. This competition brings together the top finishers from a number of regional competitions, held earlier this year. These students, representing Hillhouse High School and Co-op High School, were coached by a number of Yale Law students, led by Program Director Alex Whatley and teachers Gilad Edelman, Marcus Curtis, and Xiao Wang.
This year’s fictitious case involved whether a student must be read his Miranda rights after tweeting out a bomb threat from his personal Twitter account. To make their case, students utilized the constitutional principles they learned from the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project. The Project recruits law students from around the country to teach constitutional law classes at public high schools in their local area. Over twenty law schools currently participate in this Project, with this year marking Yale’s fifth year of participation. Approximately 30 Yale Law students have been involved in the Project this past year, working with nearly forty area high school students.
Of the 50 students competing, three out of four Yale-coached students made it to the semi-final round: Rachel Nolan, Xavier Sottile, and Julia Silverstein. Xavier ended up winning 1st runner-up, and Julia brought home the national championship.  After their arguments, Federal Circuit Judge Sharon Prost urged the competitors to consider a career in law, and mentioned that their arguments were “better than half the ones that I see in federal court.”