First-Year Law Students Argue Simulated Appellate Case Before Distinguished Judges
Washington College of Law's Legal Rhetoric class gives students real-world experience in courtroom advocacy
First-year law students at the Washington College of Law got a taste of simulated courtroom advocacy as a capstone exercise to end their year-long study of research, writing, and analysis. The 1Ls in Professor Dale Durrer's Legal Rhetoric class were given the opportunity to present oral arguments in front of distinguished judges including Blair D. Howard, criminal defense attorney and partner at the Law Offices of Howard & Howard; Honorable Thomas P. Mann, justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia; and Honorable Daniel Ortiz, Virginia Appeals Court judge. Bringing in practitioner judges marks a critical transition as students transform from law students to lawyers-in-training.
The case simulation presented involved an appellant who had been charged with forging U.S. currency with the intent to defraud. The appellant sought a reversal of the lower court’s denial of a motion to suppress evidence and the government wanted the appellate court to affirm the lower court’s decision. The students on both sides effectively explored the details of the law and its application on each side of their argument while being steadily questioned by the judges.
The judges posed questions such as "Couldn't the appellant have simply denied the officer's request to sit down and stood up and walked away?" "Could the appellant's level of education and knowledge of the law impact his ability to make a reasonable decision?" "How could a reasonable person feel free to leave a situation when armed police officers are asking them to sit?"
1L Kathryn Powell, assigned to represent the government, responded to one of the judges' questions, stating, "It is not a coercing environment for the appellant to get up and leave as they were not under arrest and they were outside able to walk away. They did not handcuff him. They did not use physical restraint. They informed him of the consequences of his decisions. They were in an area the appellant was familiar with."
Powell's co-counsel was Sarah Aber. The appellants were Dan Fleszar and Nikolai Medish. Other students who presented their cases for Durrer's class included 1L's Riley Conrad, Vincent Alfieri, Jazzmen Fobbs, Ellis Lar Moore, Olivia Kaempf, Katie Charlebois, and Carlos Polacano Rodriguez.
In Professor Elizabeth Keith's class, students were presided over by the professor herself, as well as Daniel Horowitz, a Legal Rhetoric Dean's Fellow, and Donald Saltmarsh-Lubin, a litigation associate at Ropes & Gray.
Andrew Romero presented the argument on behalf of the appellant, stating, "The record mentioned that the appellant was at home and his daughter and girlfriend were not. In case law, it explicitly discussed the fear of suspects being isolated and giving police the opportunity to coerce defendants. When it comes to the education history of a defendant, it is not relevant to determining custody but may be relevant to a voluntary confession being credible." Alongside Romero, David Montero, Tristan Shogren & Anna Sargent argued the case in their round of Professor Keith’s class.
"When the students were engaging with us and answering questions it was great," Justice Mann said. "You know what you know. Trust yourself and project confidence because then we become confident in you. Trust your ability to make the right connections at the right time because you put in the work."
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~Story by Hasini Jayawardena and Keith Pierce. Photos by Amy Hart.