CHICAGO, March 23, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Students from The John Marshall Law School in Chicago recently won second place at the national Lefkowitz Moot Court Competition in Washington, D.C., after taking first place at the Midwest regional portion of the Lefkowitz competition in February.
Third-year law students Heather Hensley and RiKaleigh Johnson earned Second Best Team and Second Best Brief in the 24-year-old competition focused on trademark and copyright law.
Hensley and Johnson spent their holiday breaks writing their brief, on a complex problem the Lefkowitz judges from the Federal Circuit described as "Trademark on Steroids." The students practiced sometimes six days a week in front of up to 20 alumni practitioners who specialize in trademark law. After that grilling, "We were used to different ways of seeing things and parsing through the issues," Hensley said.
The students credit their extensive knowledge and preparation to their trademark and copyright professor, Maureen Collins, and their coach, William McGrath, associate director of John Marshall's Center for Intellectual Property, Information & Technology Law and past president of the Intellectual Property Law Association of Chicago.
"These are two excellent, hard-working students, and we are so proud of them," professor and Associate Director of the Lawyering Skills Program Mary Nagel added.
Hensley and Johnson came to Chicago from small cities in Georgia and Florida, the first in their families to attend a professional school. Both will graduate in June with a certificate in intellectual property and have maintained busy schedules while attending John Marshall.
Johnson has worked as an intern with Accenture and as a judicial extern, while also participating in John Marshall's Business Enterprise Law and Trademark Clinics. The Trademark Clinic has allowed her even greater experience, writing opinion letters on trademark registration before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. She aims to do corporate and intellectual property work for businesses, with the possibility of forming her own start-up.
Hensley has laid a solid foundation toward what she hopes is a future as in-house counsel for a film or television production company. While at John Marshall, she has worked with entertainment lawyer Travis Life, a founding member and current associate board president of Lawyers for the Creative Arts.
The National Jurist magazine recently ranked John Marshall among the best law schools in the country for providing practical training to law students. The magazine rated schools not only by the number of students involved in externships or clinics, but also by those who participate in interschool competitions. John Marshall's trial advocacy program also recently was ranked No. 16 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report's Best Graduate Schools. The school prepares its moot court teams through its four-semester mandatory writing program, ranked 5th in the country by U.S. News.
About John Marshall's Moot Court Honors Program
The John Marshall Law School Moot Court Program is a nationally recognized program wherein law students exhibit their written and oral advocacy skills. Every fall and spring semester the Moot Court Program runs the intra-scholastic Herzog Competition, giving students the opportunity to compete, bailiff, write a bench brief, or act as a teaching assistant. John Marshall also sends multiple teams to competitions each year, in a variety of legal topics.