UB Law School team wins Niagara International Moot Court Competition

BUFFALO, N.Y. – The huge gold cup is now being engraved with the name of the University at Buffalo Law School in preparation for its return to the school for the first time in more than 40 years.

The UB Law School team came in first to win the annual Niagara International Moot Court Competition, held this year on Feb. 28 – Mar. 2, in Toronto, Canada. 

Hosted every year by the Canada-United States Law Institute, the competition draws participants from Canada and the United States. The competition location alternates annually between Washington, D.C. and Toronto, Canada.

This year’s competition problem concerned issues involving expropriation of private property, the financing of terrorism and Canada’s granting of refugee status to a suspected terrorist financier whose name was included on the UN Sanctions List. 

A prestigious final bench panel included The Honorable Tom Snow, Immigration Judge, U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review; The Honourable Kimberly Prost, Ombudsperson, UN Security Council's Al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee; and The Honourable Ian Binnie, Justice, recently retired from the Canadian Supreme Court.

Members of the UB Law School’s team also won awards for Second Best Respondent Argument and Third Best Advocate. The team finished the preliminary rounds as the highest-ranked team at the competition and advanced through the quarter-finals and semi-finals to face the second highest-ranked team, Case Western Reserve University School of Law, in the final round.

According to the judges, the competition’s final round was exceptionally well argued by both teams.

The 2013 UB team included Adam Barth ’13, Carey Beyer ’14, Jennifer Bryant ’14, Andrew Dean ’14, and Matthew Hoffman ’13.  The team of Carey Beyer and Matthew Hoffman won the quarter-final, semi-final, and final rounds. 

The team of Jennifer Bryant and Andrew Dean won Second Best Respondent Argument during the preliminary rounds in a category that involved consideration of both their oral arguments and written submissions.

Jennifer Bryant won Third Best Advocate for her arguments during the preliminary rounds. Adam Barth acted as this year’s alternate, assisting the team in preparing for the competition.

The 2013 UB team was coached, for the first time, by recent UB Law School graduates Angelyn Delgato ’12 and Melissa Overbeck ’11, both of whom have had significant experience with this competition.

They, in turn, had the assistance of student coaches Phil Modrzynski ’13 and Erin Ross ’13, who had both competed at the Niagara competition in 2012.

Tryouts for the 2014 UB Law School team will be held in April.