Moot Court Trifecta: Jessup Team Wins Regional, Best Brief Award and Best Speaker Awards

2023 Jessup Court Team
From left to right: Brianna Schmidt, Elise Manchester, William Baker, Sydney Warinner and Ellen Buerk

This weekend (Feb. 10-12, 2023), the Case Western Reserve University School of Law Jessup International Law Moot Court team, 3L Sydney Warinner (Captain), 2Ls William Baker and Elise Manchester, and 1Ls Brianna Schmidt and Ellen Buerk, emerged victorious at the regional competition in Chicago.  

In the preliminary rounds, the CWRU team beat University of Iowa, Ohio Northern, Notre Dame and St. Louis University law schools. With a 4-0 record and the highest speaker points of any team in the competition, CWRU was the top seed going into the elimination rounds. In the quarter final round, CWRU beat Mitchell-Hamline, in the semi final round CWRU defeated Notre Dame, and in the finals CWRU bested St. Louis.

In addition, CWRU won the Best Brief Award, Sydney Warinner won the Best Oralist Award and Elise Manchester won the 4th Best Oralist Award. By virtue of reaching the finals, the CWRU team earned a berth in the International Rounds to be held in Washington, D.C. from April 8-15.      

Established in 1960, the Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition is the world's oldest and most prestigious international Moot Court competition. This year's Jessup Problem involves the legality of attacks against terrorists, detention of terrorists and shipping hazardous waste abroad.

This year, 700 universities from more than 100 countries are competing for the famed Jessup Cup, which CWRU won in 2008. CWRU has been among the best teams in the world, making it to the International Rounds nine out of the past fifteen years. CWRU won the Baxter Award for the world's Best Brief in 2011. Last year, Elise Manchester was the top oralist and Will Baker was the 11th best oralist in the International Rounds of the competition out of 2,400 total competitors. 

The Jessup team is coached by Dean Scharf and alumna Liz Safier (LAW '21), an attorney at Squire Patton Boggs.