IIT Chicago-Kent to compete in the Chicago Bar Association Moot Court Competition

Two teams from IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law will participate in the Chicago Bar Association Young Lawyers Division's Moot Court Competition November 17 to 19 at the Everett McKinley Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago.

In this year's competition, students will argue American Society of Thomas Aquinas et al. v. Obama et al., a hypothetical appeal to the United States Supreme Court related to the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010. Students will consider whether Congress exceeded its authority under the commerce Clause of Article I, Section 8, when it created the so-called "individual mandate" requiring that every American purchase health care insurance or be subject to a penalty.

IIT Chicago-Kent will send two teams to the tournament. Brendan Bouffard, Kelly Silver and Brit Steinberg are on the first team. Bryan Bienias, Stephen Gardner and Caitlyn Jones comprise the second team.

Team member Brendan Bouffard is a third-year student who graduated with a degree in journalism from Michigan State University. Teammate Kelly Silver, also a third-year student, graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in English. Teammate Britt Steinberg is a third-year student who majored in English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Silver and Steinberg were members of the IIT Chicago-Kent team that won the Best Brief award in the National Cultural Heritage Law Moot Court Competition earlier this year.

Team member Bryan Bienias, a third-year student, earned an undergraduate degree in management with a minor in sound engineering from Columbia College. Teammate Stephen Gardner, a third-year student, is a graduate of Winthrop University with a major in economics and a minor in business administration. Teammate Caitlyn Jones is a third-year student who graduated from Boston College with a major in political science and a minor in Chinese. Earlier this year, this team won the National Cultural Heritage Law Moot Court Competition.

IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law is the law school of Illinois Institute of Technology, a private, Ph.D.-granting institution with programs in engineering, psychology, architecture, business, design and law. IIT Chicago-Kent's trial advocacy teams have won numerous individual student honors and regional and national competitions, including the 1988, 2007 and 2008 National Trial Competition championships. In 2008, IIT Chicago-Kent became the first law school to win both the National Trial Competition and the National Moot Court Competition in the same year.