Chicago-Kent wins Best Brief at the 2020 William E. McGee National Civil Rights Moot Court Competition

The Chicago-Kent College of Law appellate advocacy team of Hayden Dinges ’21, Sakshi Jain ’21, and Daniel Kfoury ’21 won the Best Brief Award at the 2020 William E. McGee National Civil Rights Moot Court Competition. The team finished overall as quarterfinalists at the tournament, held February 21 to 22 at Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota.

A second Chicago-Kent team of Megan Escobosa ’21, Greyson Fitzgerald ’21, and Bora Ndregjoni ’21, also argued skillfully, with Ndregjoni and Escobosa earning a perfect score during one round and Ndregjoni earning the best preliminary-round oralist award.

This year, students argued a hypothetical case involving a college-age man in a keffiyeh who was followed and eventually cornered by Kansas police officers in his girlfriend’s bakery. At issue is whether the police officers unreasonably seized the defendant’s person and cell phone in violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments and the Kansas race discrimination statute.

Third-year students Mitchell Bild and Zachary Boyce coached Dinges, Jain, and Kfoury, and third-year students David Klein-Rodick and Alexandra Prejzner coached Escobosa, Fitzgerald, and Ndregjoni. Professor Katharine Baker helped the teams prepare as a guest judge.

Dinges earned a bachelor's degree in urban studies and English from Vassar College. Jain holds a bachelor's degree in law from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University in New Delhi, India, and an LL.M. in corporate and commercial law from the University of Illinois College of Law. Kfoury graduated with a B.A. in global logistics and transportation from the College of Charleston.

The competition is named for William E. McGee, the first African American to be appointed chief public defender in the state of Minnesota. McGee also served as prosecutor for Hennepin County and as executive director at the Legal Rights Center, a nonprofit, community-based organization that represents low-income people of color.

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.