Arguing a case before three distinguished jurists was \u201ca privilege and deeply insightful experience,\u201d said Briana Fernald \u201923, after she and Jayda Cruz \u201923 won the 2020 Alva P. Loiselle Moot Court Competition at the UConn School of Law.<\/p>\n
The finals of the annual competition, which gives first-year law students a chance to practice courtroom skills, was held virtually on March 4, 2021.\u202fThe judges were Justice Gregory D\u2019Auria \u201988 of the Connecticut Supreme Court, Judge Nina Elgo of the Connecticut Appellate Court, and retired Judge Michael Sheldon of the Connecticut Appellate Court.<\/p>\n
Going into the final argument, the competitors were \u201canxious at the idea of arguing before such an esteemed panel of judges,\u201d Fernald said. When all was finished, Cruz said \u201cthe Loiselle Competition has been the highlight of 1L year so far.\u201d<\/p>\n
The competition topic was the constitutionality of laws requiring disclosure of charities\u2019 donors. The two teams argued the real-life case\u202fThomas More Law Center v. Becerra, in which the Law Center claimed the California law requiring them to disclosure their donors\u2019 names infringed on the charities\u2019 and donors\u2019 freedom of association.<\/p>\n
The judges asked tough, often hypothetical questions throughout the arguments. All three commended the finalists for their extraordinary preparation. Sheldon, who directed the Criminal Clinic at UConn Law before he was appointed to the bench, called the competitors \u201cimpressive as hell.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to Cruz and Fernald, the finalists were Alorah Connolly-Pelletier \u201923 and Zachary Sipala \u201923.<\/p>\n
Sam Shapiro, intramural director for the Moot Court Board, said that watching the final argument was an \u201cabsolute treat.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a tremendous privilege to show off the talents of our student body to guests,\u201d Shapiro said. The finalists \u201cwere outstanding ambassadors for both the Moot Court Board and the law school itself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The annual Alva P. Loiselle Moot Court Competition gives first-year law students a chance to practice courtroom skills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":170093,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1857],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1856],"class_list":["post-170092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-law"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-12 16:15:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170092"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":170096,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170092\/revisions\/170096"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/170093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170092"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=170092"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=170092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}