GU Law Team Wins National Best Brief Award

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — On February 25 & 26, 2006, two teams from Gonzaga University School of Law competed in San Francisco in the Saul Lefkowitz Moot Court Competition, trademark & unfair competition subject matter category. The annual Lefkowitz Moot Court Competition is sponsored by the International Trademark Association.

Eighteen teams from across the Western United States competed in the regional competition, including law school teams from Berkeley, BYU, UC-Davis, UC-Hastings, USF and the University of Hawaii.

“Against this strong field, the Gonzaga teams performed well,” says Sheri Engelken, Gonzaga School of Law Associate Professor and Moot Court Competition Coach. “The team of Lauren Altdoerffer, Jeff Christensen, Dan Quirk & Kristina Smith finished in the middle of the pack. The team of Alfredo De La Rosa, Nguyen Do & Brent Underwood finished fifth overall. Both teams demonstrated great poise and professionalism. They were extremely well prepared and delivered strong arguments. All seven students said they didn’t hear a single question during the competition that they hadn’t dealt with during practice rounds.”

Gonzaga Law’s performances won praise by the regional judges; a group of well-established Intellectual Property litigators from the San Francisco Bay area. Berkeley (whom Gonzaga beat in 2005) finished first this year with the highest combined brief and oral argument scores.

Best of all — for the second year in a row — Gonzaga Law won “Best Brief” in the Western Regional Competition. There are four regional competitions held across the country. Following regionals, Best Brief winners from each region are submitted to the national Best Brief Competition.

Congratulations to the “Best Brief” writers team of De La Rosa, Do and Underwood. Sharing in this accomplishment are the teams’ coaches and instructors, the legal writing faculty at Gonzaga University School of Law. Gonzaga’s consistent high rankings in annual Moot Court competitions is evidence of why Gonzaga Law’s Legal Research and Writing program was ranked twelfth nationally among law schools in 2005 (ranking status is defined in US News and World Reports annual Best Graduate Schools edition).

Gonzaga Law’s Best Brief team (De La Rosa, Do and Underwood) were informed on Monday, March 6, 2006, that their brief was voted the best in the nation. The national Best Brief award will be presented to the Gonzaga Law team on March 18, 2006, in Washington, D.C. , before judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

From all four regions across the United States, a total of approximately 70 briefs were submitted from law school teams. Among the four regional Best Brief winners, Gonzaga was selected by a panel of three judges, all specialists in trademark law. For the national award, Best Briefs are read and scored by three judges. Judges scores are combined to access an overall score for each brief.