Chicago-Kent wins best brief and best advocate awards at 2016 Evans Constitutional Law Moot Court Competition

Nick DeRyke and Daniel Ristau, second-year students at Chicago-Kent College of Law at Illinois Tech, won the award for best respondent's brief at the 2016 Evan A. Evans Constitutional Law Moot Court Competition. In addition, Ristau was honored as the tournament's best oral advocate. The team finished in the octofinal round of the competition, held March 4 to 6 at the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison.

Nick DeRyke earned a bachelor's degree in social relations and policy and criminal justice from Michigan State University. Daniel Ristau graduated with a bachelor's degree in political science and history from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Law school teams from many of the top moot court programs in the country participated in the tournament, named for Judge Evan A. Evans, an 1899 University of Wisconsin Law School alumnus who served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1916 to 1948. Chicago-Kent won the competition in 2013 and won back-to-back championships in 2008 and 2009. In 2009, the law school also won awards for best respondent's and petitioner's briefs.

Chicago-Kent's Ilana Diamond Rovner Program in Appellate Advocacy, the umbrella program for many of the law school's moot court activities, was established in 1992. Since then, Chicago-Kent students have won numerous individual honors and regional and national competitions, including consecutive titles in the New York City Bar Association's National Moot Court Competition.