Baylor Law Team Wins ABA Regional Appellate Advocacy Competition, Qualifies for National Tournament

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A Baylor Law School team went 5-0 in oral argument rounds to become champions at the ABA Regional Appellate Advocacy Competition, which was held the last weekend in February in San Francisco. With the win, the team automatically qualified for the national finals, scheduled for early April in Chicago.

The Baylor team of Brittney Johnson and David Schlottman won oral rounds against teams from the University of California at Berkeley, Golden Gate Law School, Northwestern University, University of Phoenix and the University of Minnesota. In the final round against Minnesota, Johnson and Schlottman won all five ballots by an average exceeding 20 points per ballot. Johnson also was named the sixth top oral advocate in the regional competition.

Another Baylor team of Kathryn Childress, Molly Hinshaw, and Jose Magana also performed impressively at the regional competition and were narrowly defeated, 3-2, by one of the stronger teams in the tournament, a defeat that effectively eliminated them.

"The ABA competition is considered the most significant moot court competition in the nation, in terms of both the quantity and quality of the teams," said Baylor Law Professor Brian Serr, who served as coach. "I want to thank each of our advocates for so impressively representing Baylor Law School."

This year's competition problem brought up questions about whether restrictions on commercial speech designed to keep certain information about pseudoephedrine products from methamphetamine cooks (who use pseudoephedrine in the unlawful production of meth) violate the First Amendment rights of the buyers and sellers of such cold and allergy medicine products.

The problem also dealt with the propriety of judicial review when a law has not yet been enforced against the lawful sellers of pseudoephedrine products.

Contact: Julie Carlson, Baylor Law School, (254) 710-6681