South Texas doubles down with Scribes

For the second straight year, South Texas College of Law claimed THE Best Brief Award of all best brief trophies -- the 2009-10 Scribes Brief Writing Award. The annual prize, presented by the American Society of Legal Writers, goes to the best brief (as voted on by the Scribes graders) in the nation from the previous academic year. To qualify, a brief must have placed first at any regional or national interschool moot court competition. South Texas's winning brief came from the John Marshall Law School International Moot Court Competition in Information Technology and Privacy Law.

Second place was a tie between Faulkner University Thomas Goode Jones School of Law for its regional best brief at the National Moot Court Competition, and Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology, for its first-place brief at the Illinois Appellate Lawyers Moot Court Competition. Honorable Mentions went to Case Western Reserve University School of Law for its Respondent brief at the regional rounds of the Phillip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, as well as South Texas for its national best brief at the ABA National Appellate Advocacy Competition.

Winning Scribes is a tremendous honor, particularly considering you're fighting only briefs that have won top prizes themselves (I had a student win it in 2006-07, and it is one of Texas Wesleyan's proudest moot court accomplishments). So it's quite impressive that South Texas has won twice in a row, and perhaps even more impressive that it's the second straight year they've had a second brief place among the top three.

That said, it has to be hard to pick a "best brief" when you're comparing samples from across numerous competitions. It reminds me of something I once heard Sean Connery say about the Best Actor Oscar: How can you name a winner when they all play different roles? Shouldn't the test be to make all five nominees play the same role? Which got me thinking -- wouldn't it have been so awesomely amazing (in a ridiculous sort of way) to see Tom Hanks, Morgan Freeman, Nigel Hawthorne, Paul Newman, AND John Travolta all take a go at Forrest Gump?

Another note -- and not to take anything away from Faulkner -- but its second-place-award brief (which qualified because it won first in its region at the NMCC) placed TENTH (out of 28) at the national rounds of the NMCC. I bring this up not to pick on Faulkner; indeed, given its placement in the Scribes and at its regional competition, I think you can make a strong argument that the brief was unfairly treated at Nationals. Rather, I think it underscores the point I've repeatedly made that brief grading is incredibly subjective and suffers from wild variations that often make little to no sense. Which is why, despite the fact that briefing in the real world counts for much more than oral argument, we ought to reject calls from moot court critics to make the brief "count for more." If anything, it ought to count for less, given the inability of anyone to agree on what's good and what's not.