Liberty’s moot court and debate teams go into the next round of competitions

Both the Liberty debate and moot court teams plan to compete on the national level after qualifying in their regional competitions earlier this month. 

Undergraduate debate team

The debate team earned their spot at the 2020 National Debate Tournament (NDT) after competing at the District 7 qualifying tournament with universities from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington DC and West Virginia. Sophomores Jared DeMunbrun and Maverick Edwards finished with four wins and four losses to earn the seventh and final qualifying spot.

Director of Debate Michael Hall said he is excited to see how well they do at the 2020 NDT.

“Qualifying to the National Debate Tournament as sophomores is an impressive accomplishment,” Hall said per a press release. “Jared and Maverick have become a consistently good team. If they continue to improve, they have a chance to become a great team.”

The junior varsity (JV) and novice teams also qualified at the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) Northeast Regional Championship in New York City sending them to JV/Novice National Tournament in Binghamton, New York,
March 13-15. 

Liberty’s three junior varsity teams won against Cornell, New York University (NYU) and The New School to get a combined tally of 17 wins and one loss in the preliminary debates. Justice Wallenmeyer and Ryan Wittstock along with Rachel Solsman and Addison Wagner finished with a perfect score of 6-0.

The novice team defeated others from the United States Military Academy, NYU and Boston College as they finished the preliminary debates with a combined score of 18 wins and six losses.

Liberty is currently ranked first in both the CEDA and NDT rankings and  other schools in the top 10 include the University of California-Berkeley, Kansas, Northwestern, Emory, Wake Forest, NYU and Texas, according to the press release.

Law school moot court team

The Liberty School of Law plans to send three second-year law students, Matthew Hughes, Michael Maunder and Dan Capps to the National Appellate Advocacy Competition (NAAC) finals in April. This is the law school’s ninth time in 14 years to send a team to NAAC. 

The trio secured their spot after winning their regional contest in Washington, D.C., Feb. 28-29, defeating Stetson, Marquette and American University with a 4-1 score. Another Liberty team, Jacob Gordon,Clint Hamilton and Kristi Pitts faced defeat against Georgetown University, missing the elimination rounds.

Scott Thompson, a Liberty law professor, one of the coaches for the Moot Court team, said he is proud of the team’s performance at the regional competition.

“Both teams argued extremely well and, more importantly, conducted themselves in a manner worthy of their calling,” Thompson said per Liberty News Service. “They all worked extremely hard and did everything that we asked of them to achieve these results.” 

Troutman is the news editor. Follow him on Twitter.

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