After a demanding six months of preparation for the American Intellectual Property Law Association’s Giles Sutherland Rich Memorial Moot Court Competition, Nick Restauri’s and Rachel Schweers’ hard work and dedication paid off with a regional first place finish, two best brief awards and the national title of runner-up.
Restauri and Schweers formed a team in November 2011, soon after the release of the competition problem. The brief writing process took them through the end of the year, and in mid-January, they finalized their briefs for the regional competition held in Chicago in March. Unlike most moot court competitions that require participants to write one brief, the patent moot requires students to write briefs for both sides of the argument. Schweers, a patent agent with a Ph.D. in biochemistry and a recipient of the Robert and Clytia Chambers Endowed Prize for Excellence in the College of Law, says, though this requirement made more work for the team at the onset of the writing process, “It also facilitated our ability to more effectively advocate for either side of the issues.”
“Rachel and I spent a great deal of time going back and forth over our briefs,” says Restauri, a third-year student who received the 2012 Allen J. Hoover Memorial Award. “We scrutinized every sentence and rewrote portions multiple times. The process was long and very tedious, but Rachel and I played off each other’s individual writing strengths and eventually arrived at the final products.” The team received awards for best appellant brief and best appellee brief at the regional level, where they competed against 26 teams to win first place and advance to the national competition in Washington, D.C., in April.
To prepare for oral arguments, the team practiced two days a week for seven weeks before the regional, and after winning, continued to rehearse two days a week until the national competition. They also benefited from the assistance and support of DePaul intellectual property law professors, the Center for Intellectual Property Law & Information Technology, and alumni who previously competed in the patent moot.