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PRESS RELEASE
For more information, please contact: Gwen Osborne, director of public affairs, (312) 906-5251
Kara Schuur Wins Ilana Diamond Rovner Appellate Advocacy Competition
CHICAGO–November 17 , 2008--Kara Schuur, a third-year student at Chicago-Kent College of Law, has won the 17th annual Ilana Diamond Rovner Appellate Advocacy Competition sponsored by the law school’s Moot Court Honor Society. The competition is named for Ilana Diamond Rovner, judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, who graduated from Chicago-Kent in 1966.
Students in the Rovner competition each prepare a brief in a case that raises an important issue of national concern, as well as an oral argument on both sides of that issue. Students present those arguments before panels consisting of Chicago-Kent faculty, practicing attorneys and experienced moot court students. The top-scoring students advance through a series of elimination rounds. Twenty-nine students competed in the event over a five-day period.
This year, students argued City of Pleasant Grove, Utah v. Summum, a First Amendment case about the scope of the government’s authority to regulate the display of permanent monuments and artistic displays in public spaces. City of Pleasant Grove, Utah v. Summum is a case currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, with oral arguments heard by the justices on the same day as the final round of the Rovner competition. A ruling on the case by the U.S. Supreme Court is expected next year.
In the final round, Kara Schuur argued for the respondent, Summum, against second-year student Laura Elkayam. As the winner of the final round of the competition, Schuur received the Ilana Diamond Rovner Award for Outstanding Appellate Advocate and a $1,000 scholarship. Laura Elkayam -- who achieved the highest cumulative oral argument scores through the preliminary, octofinal and quarterfinal rounds -- received the Fay Clayton Award for Outstanding Oralist and a $500 scholarship. Second-year evening student Michael Borella received the Ralph L. Brill Award for Best Brief and a $500 scholarship. Clayton, who graduated with honors from Chicago-Kent in 1978, and Professor Ralph Brill, a member of the faculty since 1961 who founded the law school’s groundbreaking legal research and writing program and its award-winning moot court program, presented their awards to the winners.
The final round of the competition was judged by a distinguished panel that included Judge Rovner; Richard D. Cudahy, senior circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit; and Damon E. Dunn, a 1981 Chicago-Kent graduate and partner at the Chicago law firm of Funkhouser Begosen Liebman and Dunn.
A native of Muscatine, Iowa, Schuur earned an undergraduate degree in communications and journalism from Northern Illinois University. She has been a finalist in the Charles Evans Hughes Moot Court Competition. She is a member of the Chicago-Kent Law Review and has received awards for outstanding achievement in Legal Writing from the Center for Computer Assisted Legal Instruction. In the summer of 2008, she worked at the Chicago law firm of Seyfarth Shaw LLP and will join the firm’s labor and employment practice area in the fall of 2009.
Established in 1992, the Ilana Diamond Rovner Program in Appellate Advocacy provides training for students in Chicago-Kent’s Moot Court Honor Society. Students in the program complete intensive course work in appellate litigation, represent the law school in top appellate advocacy tournaments throughout the United States, and are eligible to participate in the Ilana Diamond Rovner Competition.
Chicago-Kent’s advocacy programs have a tradition of excellence. In 2008, Chicago-Kent teams won the National Ethics Trial Competition, the Evan A. Evans Moot Court Competition, the National Health Law Moot Court Competition, the Midwest Moot Court Competition, and became the only law school ever to win National Trial Competition and the National Moot Court Competition in the same year.
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