Patrick Henry College, which I help run and where I teach, won a national championship. Not in football or basketball, but in moot court, a competition which consists of arguing cases in a simulated appellate court.
For the fourth time in six years, Patrick Henry College has won the ACMA National Moot Court Championship. The team of Rachel Heflin and Jenna Lorence beat a team from Baylor University, giving Heflin back-to-back titles and making her the tournament’s only two-time champion. Heflin won last year’s 2009 ACMA (American Collegiate Moot Court Association) National Championship with partner Aidan Grano.
Last year’s national third-place team of PHC students James Mieding and Robert Kelly also captured 2010’s third place trophy, January 16, at the Florida International University College of Law in Miami, Florida. The duo may have finished even higher had they not had to duel Heflin-Lorence in the semi-finals.
“In their PHC careers, Robert and James have never lost a round in a moot court competition except to a PHC team,” observed an elated Dr. Michael Farris, PHC’s moot court coach, chancellor, and founder. “As it was, we had two teams in the round of eight and advanced more teams at each stage than any other college.“The competition in Miami was incredibly rigorous, and keeps getting stronger each year,” he added. But, as he told a packed and cheering crowd of students at Monday’s chapel, “This little College in Virginia has amassed a tremendous track record.”
To date, no other college or university has won more than one ACMA national championship. Among the other teams competing in Miami were Harvard and Syracuse University, Holy Cross, the College of Wooster (2008 ACMA Champion), and Fitchburg State College. In all, PHC sent the maximum number of eight teams to the 64-team competition and placed first, third, ninth, 11th, 13th and 17th.
The College also won national Brief Writing titles, as the team of Kelly and Mieding won First Petitioner Brief, while Rachel Blum and Paul Sellers earned First Respondent Brief. PHC had six students qualify as well in the top 20 Individual Speaker Awards, with Kelly placing second and Mieding capturing fifth place, as well as Jenna Lorence (11th place), Levi Swank (12th), Joseph Alm (13th place), and Zachary Enos (19th place).
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