Not many students defer graduation intentionally just to take one more class, especially if it’s a class they already took and passed, but senior political science and film major Paige McCormack chose to stay at Cal State Long Beach this semester to take the Political Science 417 moot court class one more time.
“I decided to come back this semester solely for the purpose of competing again,” McCormack wrote in an e-mail. “My experience at [moot court] nationals made me much more competitive, and I think my time under the care of Dr. [Lewis] Ringel and both [of] his assistants, Katie Kruger and Shelagh Hoffman, contributed to my decision to return.”
In moot court, students learn to argue in a simulation of appellate court proceedings. Each year, a scenario involving constitutional law is presented to two students, who take a side of the argument to debate. Students are not notified of their assigned position until the day of the competition.
This year’s topic concerns the Second Amendment and commerce law. The fictional scenario to be debated involves a man who operates a firearm business and runs a home school, a violation of the Gun-Free School Zones Act, according to the Cal State Long Beach Office of Public Affairs.
Preparation for the program begins early. According to Lewis Ringel, the director of the program and a political science department lecturer, students in the program were given their first case in May and were told they would be quizzed on the first day of class.
While the workload is steep – including 18 case briefs, argument outlines and hypothesis questions –moot court participants like McCormack, Jillian Martins and Kristin Hallak have chosen to take the program more than once and will be competing again this year.
“It gives you a new way of thinking,” said Martins, a senior pre-law student. “It was so fun, I loved it. … It requires thinking and analyzing – very challenging.”
While the program often appeals to pre-law, political science students, neither McCormack nor her partner last year, Sheila Soroushian, were political science majors at the time.
McCormack was majoring in film, and Soroushian, who now attends in dental school in Boston, majored in biochemistry. Yet they were the only two-person team from CSULB to compete in the national competition in Virginia last year.
This year, 11 students from CSULB will be competing in conjunction with Patrick Henry College, a private Christian college in Purcellville, Va.
According to the press release, 10 more schools have chosen to taken part in the program this year and will be competing at CSULB this weekend. 28 of this year’s competitors are from colleges including University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Fresno State, CSU Fullerton and Chapman.
This will be the sixth year in a row that the moot court program will be holding its western regional tournament at CSULB.
The competition will be held Friday from 5 to 9 p.m. in Health and Human Services Building 1, and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in University Student Union Room 205-A.
Students competing in this year’s competition also include: Muhammad Ataya, Amy Fernandez, Cody Austin Fitch, Edward McNamara, Ryan Mommaerts, Lindsay Nelson, Melissa Sanchez and Mason Lawrence Taylor.
As for McCormack, she is optimistic about CSULB’s performance in the competition this year with her partner, Ataya, who is a senior majoring in political science.
“I really have high hopes that our entire CSULB team does well and that we get as many teams as possible to nationals,” McCormack wrote. “Other than that, I am confident that my partner … and I are prepared.”
