by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
An historic trend that spans more than a quarter of a century failed to come to fruition for the second year in a row at this year’s Hulsey-Kimbrell Fla./Ga. Moot Court Competition held Friday in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals at the Federal Courthouse.
The event has been a tradition for the past 27 years and a relationship has been established between the results obtained by the two schools’ law students in the courtroom and the final score on the gridiron on Saturday.
Before the competition began, Lanny Russell of Smith Hulsey and Busey pointed out that most years, the school that gets the majority decision in the courtroom fails to prevail on the gridiron the following day and then the University of Florida law school grad said, “It has been an accurate predictor – in the inverse sense – so go Georgia!”
The teams presented arguments in a mock appeal based on issues related to a case currently being heard by the U. S. Supreme Court before a distinguished panel of judges led by presiding Judge Gerald Tjoflat. He was joined by U. S. District Judges Anthony Alaimo and Avant Edenfield from the Southern District of Georgia and U. S. District Judges Timothy Corrigan and John Moore from the Middle District of Florida.
Russell said that combined, the members of the panel had heard arguments in the annual Gators vs. Bulldogs moot court competition 85 times. He also said the proceedings would be unorthodox in that the judges were asked to rule not on the merits of the legal principles involved, but on the performance of the advocates for each side.
Both teams presented their cases and following a short recess, court was called back to order and the panel returned to the bench.
“All of us agree this is the finest oral argument we have heard in the history of this competition,” declared Tjoflat.
He said the case was chosen because the issues involved were so balanced, then announced, “We had a divided court. I won’t tell you how it was divided, but we award the case to (the team from) Georgia.”