In the courtroom, at least, the Georgia Bulldogs have a year’s worth of bragging rights over the Florida Gators.
After an intense battle, a University of Georgia team was selected Friday by a five-judge U.S. District Circuit Court panel as victors over a University of Florida squad in the 34th annual Florida-Georgia moot court competition.
The students’ arguments and ensuing decision by three Florida and two Georgia federal judges were made on the the eve of the annual football matchup, which Florida won.
The court competition simulated issues of a federal constitutional law being contemplated in an unresolved case of a defendant charged with selling a sexually graphic T-shirt.
The legal issues debated were whether the defendant is competent to stand trial and how to determine the applicable standard for Internet obscenity.
“Both sides did extremely well … all of the lawyers were very prepared,” said Judge Gerald B. Tjoflat of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, who presided over the panel. “It was a razor-thin case for us to decide.”
Competing were University of Florida law students Ellie Simmons of Jacksonville and Phil Marino of Gainesville, and University of Georgia students
Jenny Coleman of Memphis, Tenn., and Aaron Parks of Lilburn, Ga.
“You could go to an actual argument in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and have practitioners with 20 years of experience perform at that level that we saw from these students today. Maybe it’s because they don’t know enough to be scared,” said attorney Lanny Russell, a principal organizer of the event on behalf of the Jacksonville law firm of Smith Hulsey & Busey.
The mock judiciary panel aggressively challenged the students’ arguments throughout the morning session.
Simmons said afterward that being persistently put on the spot by the judiciary panel provides well-prepared attorneys the opportunity to bolster their arguments.
“If they asked you a lot of questions, then you knew it was something they cared about. We liked it when they asked questions — and we were prepared for it,” said Simmons, a second-year law student who graduated from The Bolles School in 2006 and obtained a psychology degree in 2010 from Washington & Lee University.
After the teams presented their cases and rebuttals, the judges met in recess to determine the winner. Court was then called back to session for Tjoflat to announce the outcome.
Russell said that unlike an actual court proceeding, the judges ruled not on the merits of the legal principles involved, but on the law students’ performance.
Joining Tjoflat on the panel were Senior Judge William Terrell Hodges and U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard, both of the Middle District of Florida, and Chief Judge Lisa Godbey Wood and U.S. District Judge B. Avant Edenfield, both of the Southern District of Georgia.
The annual event was recently named the Florida/Georgia-Hulsey/Gambrell moot court competition after event founder Mark Hulsey and E. Smythe Gambrell, a founding partner of Smith Gambrell & Russell, which co-sponsors the event with Smith Hulsey & Busey.
The contest was followed by another Florida-Georgia weekend tradition: The Jacksonville Bar Association’s Dueling Deans member luncheon.