Stephanie Showalter Otts, Brian Whitman, Kimberly Thompson, Dreda Culpepper and David Case spend time together at the Pace competition.
OXFORD, Miss. – The University of Mississippi Law School took first place for the second consecutive year at the 24th Annual National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition last week at Pace Law School in White Plains, N.Y.
The team, composed of third-year law student Dreda Culpepper of New Orleans and second-year law students Kimberly Thompson of Orlando, Fla., and Brian Whitman of Waveland, beat 77 other law schools. Ole Miss is only the third law school to win multiple titles in the 24-year history of the event.
David Case and Stephanie Showalter Otts, both Ole Miss law professors, served as team coaches. Case, a nationally recognized scholar on environmental regulation and management topics, holds a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in Interdisciplinary Studies: Environmental Law, Management and Policy. Otts is the director of the National Sea Grant Law Center, which works to ensure the wise stewardship of marine resources through research, education, outreach and technology transfer.
“The Pace competition is one of the oldest, largest and most prestigious law school moot court competitions in the country,” Case said. “Winning consecutive national championships demonstrates that students of the Ole Miss law school can compete at the very highest level nationally.”
In preliminary rounds, the team competed against the universities of Arizona, Denver, Michigan and Wyoming, and New York University. Thompson was named Best Oralist in the first preliminary round; Culpepper, in the second preliminary round; and Whitman, in the third. The team also won for Best Brief – Intervenor-Appellee, one of three awards for the highest scoring briefs given annually at the competition.
Thompson and Whitman argued for Ole Miss in the quarterfinal round, defeating teams from Drake University and UCLA, and in the semifinal round, Whitman and Culpepper won against teams from the University of Tennessee and Loyola-New Orleans.
The Ole Miss titled was secured by Culpepper and Thompson, who defeated the University of Denver and seven-time NELMCC champion Lewis & Clark Law School in the final round. Judging the competition were the Honorable Vincent L. Briccetti, judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York; the Honorable Nancy B. Firestone, judge on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C.; and Jeffrey Miller, professor of law at Pace University School of Law.
“The entire law school community is proud of the team and coaches who won the Pace Environmental Law Moot Court Competition,” said Richard Gershon, UM law school dean. “The fact that they won this prestigious competition two years in a row is a testament to the outstanding students and faculty we have at the University of Mississippi School of Law.”
“An indescribable amount of hard work and dedication led to Ole Miss repeating as champions,” Case said. “There are no words sufficient to express just how proud I am of this team.”
For more information, contact Jenny Kate Luster at jkluster@olemiss.edu or 662-915-3424. For more information on programs at the UM School of Law.