Supreme Court Justice Helps Give Nervous Student Lawyers a Challenge : Tensions of Moot Trial Test Are Not Arguable

Even veteran lawyers who argue cases before the U.S. Supreme Court complain of nervousness. So it was no surprise that four Pepperdine University Law School students were sweating Saturday as they took their first case before a troika of judges headed by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

But by the end of the tense session, one of the students could relax enough to conclude: “She puts her panty hose on just like we do.”

It was Pepperdine’s 11th annual moot court competition, pitting 140 students against one another in mock court sessions. About 150 judges from throughout the country graded the students over two days on poise, appearance, knowledge of subject matter and ability to answer questions from the bench.

O’Connor wasn’t the first Supreme Court justice to appear as a judge for the competition. Justice Harry A. Blackmun served several years ago.

At the final round on Saturday, O’Connor, California Supreme Court Justice Malcolm M. Lucas and U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Thomas M. Reavley grilled student attorneys on their presentations and bored holes in their arguments.

Competing were Norman Gritsch of Laguna Beach and Suzan Karpati of Reading, Pa., against Nancy Crumrine of Camarillo, Linda Kollar of Camarillo and Susan Strong of Brentwood, who prepared the trial brief.

The pressure of facing O’Connor played heavily on the competitors throughout the week.

“The anticipation is always worse than the doing,” said Crumrine. “Until she got up there, the thought was intimidating. But she is not intimidating at all.”

The students argued a fictitious case concerning a couple in the State of Quaker who were divorcing after six years of marriage. The wife had helped her husband through medical school and claimed that, because of her sacrifice, she should receive a larger sum of alimony than that to which the two had agreed in a prenuptial contract.

The student lawyers learned only an hour before the competition whether they would represent the husband or the wife.

As it turned out, Gritsch and Karpati--lawyers for the husband--won in what O’Connor described as “a very close decision indeed.”

Of the moot court, Karpati said: “We sit in these classrooms day after day, listen to the professor and take notes. It’s nothing like Perry Mason. The moot court competition gives you an opportunity to be a lawyer.”

Several times the judges threw the students off by asking questions they had not anticipated.

“When that happens, you look around for an out and go for it,” said Kollar, lawyer for the wife.

The session had its light moments.

When O’Connor quizzed Kollar on whether her client would be entitled to the husband’s future salary if he had earned only an undergraduate degree, Lucas quickly added, “in Greek mythology?”

And when Karpati suggested that the court should take the case under submission until the state Legislature adopted rules on such matters, as happened in California, Lucas responded: “Are you suggesting that the solemn State of Quaker should emulate that state out West?”

Lucas also took note of the spectacular view of the Pacific Ocean from Pepperdine’s hilltop perch, remarking: “Justice O’Connor says that the view here is more inspiring than looking at any of her colleagues on the Supreme Court.”