Sonali Sarkar moves confidently to a podium in King Hall and introduces herself. Not as the third-year law student she is, but as a co-agent representing the fictitious Kingdom of Merapi.
She is leading off a practice session for a team of five law students that has advanced to the international level of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Com-petition beginning Mon-day in Washington, D.C. There, the UC Davis team will be among competitors from 70 schools representing 60 countries.
At a regional competition in February, the Jessup team defeated all 10 teams from California, Oregon, Texas and Mon-tana to earn its berth in the international rounds, and member Angela Choi was recognized as one of the four best oralists.
The other team members are Carmel Adelberg, Steven Salcedo and Kenneth Weatherwax.
The five are among about 40 UC Davis law students participating in more than a dozen mock trial and appellate competitions each year. And through the preparation and the competitions themselves that can occupy a team most of the academic year, the students learn law, develop skills and build resumes that will give them an edge in their future careers.
"Moot court competitions offer a great opportunity for students to build on what they're learning in law school and apply it to a life-like scenario," says Kevin Johnson, associate dean of the law school and faculty adviser to the Jessup team.
With Sarkar's introduction, the Moot Courtroom in King Hall is transformed into the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and Johnson, listening from the bench above Sarkar, becomes "His Excellency," the court's president.
For the Jessup Competition, organized by the International Law Students Association, the team is arguing both sides of the "The Matter Concerning the Seabed Mining Facility." The Kingdom of Merapi and the Republic of Erebus are disputing the location of a common border and the legality of a seabed mining facility. The case involves issues of the law of the sea, use of force, state responsibility and extradition.
In the fall, the team researched and wrote two 25-page briefs based on facts provided by the competition. The team used several international treaties and conventions, and cited authorities from laws established in the Middle Ages to rulings of the United Nations' International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Other moot court competitions focus on areas of law from evidence and environmental law to bankruptcy and entertainment law, and on skills from representation in a jury trial or appellate hearing to client counseling and negotiation.
The Jessup team is selected by the previous year's team based on a writing sample and an oral presentation. A student-run board administers most of the appellate competitions - from evaluating potential team members to establishing criteria for a team's financial support from the school.
At competitions, panels of real-life judges and attorneys evaluate the students' efforts. Winners are selected based on the quality of their writing, arguments and oral presentations.
Faculty advisers, like Johnson, help teams hone their oral presentations, and other faculty members and outside attorneys also critique them. For Jessup, they pepper the students with the kinds of questions they'll face from judges and afterward offer advice to the students from the substance of their arguments to their pace of speech and hand gestures.
But the students also coach one another. "That's the good thing about practice," says Salcedo, the Jessup team's captain. "We turn on each other like piranhas. We moot each other."
Moot court competitions supplement a curriculum rich in practical experience with skills courses, internships; and four legal clinics and an appellate advocacy practicum in which students work on real cases under the supervision of a faculty member or staff attorney.
Two second-year courses in appellate advocacy include an internal moot court competition, with the two best teams squaring off in the Irving L. Neumiller Memorial Moot Court Competition on Picnic Day, April 21. Enrollment in the courses is required for students competing in the more elite moot court competitions.
The law school offers one academic credit for participation in the Jessup competition plus one extra credit for winning the regional competition. Some other competitions also qualify for credit.
"It definitely builds your confidence," says Sarkar. "Now to go before a judge won't be so daunting."