A team of second-year students from UIC John Marshall Law School in Chicago were national finalists in the Twelfth Annual First Amendment and Media Law Diversity Moot Court Competition. Jerrilyn Gumila (’21) and David Reyes (’21) won second place in the competition, and Gumila was named Best Oralist. Top scoring teams also received a financial award.
The competition was hosted by the American Bar Association during the Forum on Communications Law 25th Annual Conference in Austin, Texas.
Natalie Spears, a partner and trial lawyer at Dentons, along with Natalie Harris, an attorney at Baron, Harris, Healey, served as national mentors to the team.
The team presented oral arguments before Bridget McCormack, Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court; Eva Guzman, Justice of the Texas Supreme Court; and Carlton Reeves, Judge on the Southern District of Mississippi.
The First Amendment and Media Law Diversity Moot Court Competition is administered by the American Bar Association Forum on Communications Law. The Competition Committee, which is comprised of media lawyers, in-house counsel at national media companies and tenured and visiting law school faculty, oversaw the administration of the Competition.
Both Gumila and Reyes attended undergrad at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.