Sorrell takes gold at Beaudry competition

by Charlie Stones, 1L
Law Weekly
April 7, 2009

On Thursday, April 2, Georgetown Law hosted the Barristers’ Council’s 58th Annual Beaudry Moot Court Competition. Virginia Sorrell, 1L emerged victoriously completing a sweep of the instraschool competitions by members of Section 3.

The Beaudry competition began before spring break, when over 250 first year students bought the packets of information containing everything needed to write an appellate brief. Of those, 144 students submitted briefs. The competitors then made their first round oral arguments based on those briefs. 36 were selected to advance to the second round of oral arguments and all 36 were also invited to join the Moot Court team.

The 36 were reduced to 12 in the third round. After a fourth round, 12 became four, and those four (Jack Mellyn, Abhi Raghunathan, Virginia Sorrell, and Elizabeth Spavins) made it to the final round where they had the opportunity to argue their case in front of a distinguished panel of judges.

The case, Pamela Davis, et al. v. Department of Public Health of New Columbia, concerned the constitutionality of the New Columbia Marriage Amendment, a fictitious state amendment defining marriage as solely between a man and woman. The petitioners were a group of gay and lesbian couples who wished to marry, and they challenged the law on two grounds: first, that it violated the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution, and second, that it violated the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.

The judges’ roles were filled by the Honorable Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Associate Justice for the Supreme Court of the United States; the Honorable Thomas L. Ambro, Circuit Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit; the Honorable Sharon Prost, Circuit Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit; the Honorable Laura Denvir Stith, Chief Justice for the Supreme Court of Missouri; and the Honorable Diane P. Wood, Circuit Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Raghunathan stepped up to the podium first. He argued for the petitioners on the question of the Due Process Clause violation. He had barely gotten out his and his co-counsel’s names before Justice Ambro fired off the first question. It was a nonstop barrage of questions from that moment until his time ran up, a trend that continued for the other three finalists.

Spavins followed Rahunathan, arguing for the petitioners on equal protection grounds. She was followed by Jack Mellyn, arguing the question of due process for the respondent, who was followed by his co-counsel, Virginia Sorrell, arguing the question of equal protection.

The panel was lively and each competitor fielded questions from each of the judges. Wood was certainly the most aggressive of the justices and asked the most questions by far. The crowd favorite seemed to be Ambro who delighted everyone in attendance with his complement of quips.

After Ragunathan made a point, the following exchange took place.

Ambro: Isn’t that a dictum?

Ragunathan: Yes, a very persuasive one, Your Honor.

Ambro: Ragunathan 1, Ambro 0.

Ambro pleased the crowd again with a great one-liner during Spavins’ time in the hot seat.

Spavins: Marriage is greater than the sum of its parts.

Ambro: I’ve tried to tell that to my wife. She doesn’t believe me.

The exchanges were crisp and lively as both the contestants and justices proved quick on their feet. The crowd, though forced to remain silent, was obviously pleased with the performance it was witnessing.

After the arguments had ended, the justices retired to chambers to discuss the contestants and to choose a winner. As they discussed their decision-making process, all the judges stressed the admirable performance of each of finalists and consequently, the difficulty of the decision.

“This is a hundred times harder than it looks, though it’s not like we asked you too many questions,” Alito said jokingly.

Alito then recalled his own moot court experience, claiming that he was not nearly so impressive as this year’s finalists. Alito said his judge asked him the same question over and over again, but Alito kept giving the same answer.

“I told the judge: ‘I’d like to move on to another point.’ He said: ‘You haven’t answered my question to my satisfaction.’ Then I said: ‘Well, Your Honor, I answered it to my satisfaction.’” The crowd laughed heartily.

After once again stressing the closeness of the contest, Alito announced Virginia Sorrell the winner. The crowd erupted with applause for the winner and gratitude for all those who made this year’s competition the incredible event that it was.