Environmental & Animal Law Advocacy I (594-A1)

Professor Craig Johnston
3 Credits
Fall 2011: Friday, 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
*Meets the WIE or Capstone writing requirement.

This class centers on a moot court experience, but includes more than that. During the first five weeks, each student will write a brief on an environmental problem. There will also be classroom sessions focusing on both brief-writing and oral advocacy. Over approximately the next three weeks, the students will engage in six rounds of argument. The first three of these arguments are practice rounds and the next three are competition rounds. After the six rounds of argument are over, the top three advocates (based on both the brief and the arguments) will be offered the chance to participate on our national team for the Pace Environmental Moot Court Competition. The next four will be offered spots on our national team for the Animal Law Moot Court Competition at Harvard, which takes place entirely in spring semester (or on the Pace team, should any of the students chosen for that team choose not to participate). We also will name alternates. From that point forward, the students who are on the Pace team collectively will write a brief (due around Thanksgiving) for the Pace competition (the oral-advocacy part of the Pace competition happens during the spring semester). Everyone else will rewrite the brief they wrote for the in-school competition, based on the comments they have received both on the brief they first submitted and during the course of the practice and competition rounds. Unlike in the past, this course is graded. Students can use their re-written briefs to satisfy one of our upper-level writing requirements.