Moot points, well made
The experience of earlier moot court contests and many hours of rigorous study can seem to melt into the ether when surviving third-year Harvard Law School (HLS) students face not just any panel of esteemed judges but one led by a U.S. Supreme Court justice. On Thursday, the teams in the showdown round of the Ames Moot Court Competition tried to persuade a panel headed by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to change the law of the land. That’s what student Jessica Palmer was trying to do when she argued that her fictional client was protected by the First Amendment even though he lied when claiming in an online dating profile that he was awarded the Navy Cross for service as a SEAL in the first Gulf War. Palmer’s client in the test case sampling thorny, unsettled legal issues was convicted of violating the Stolen Valor Act, which punishes lies about...