FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Third-year law students Nate Arrington and Hannah Hines successfully represented their client against second-year students Dalton Cook and Tristen Cross in the final round of the 2021 Ben J. Altheimer Moot Court Competition. The competition took place on Feb. 11 via Zoom. 

Hines was named best oralist of the competition and Arrington and Hines were recognized for best brief.

The students presented their cases before the Hon. Lavenski Smith (J.D. '87), chief judge of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals; the Hon. Kristine Gerhard Baker (J.D. '96) of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas; and the Hon. Jane L. Kelly, also of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

This year's case — John J. Schmidt v. United States — was about whether a law enforcement officer had conducted an unreasonable search of an arrestee's apartment in violation of the Fourth Amendment. This was because the officer had swiped a key fob in front of multiple apartments until she found the arrestee's apartment prior to getting a search warrant.

"All the competitors represented our school to the judges and our community really well," said Ashley Spinazze, co-chair of the 2021 Ben J. Altheimer Moot Court Competition. "They showed the level of preparation and professionalism of those arguing before the Courts of Appeals."

Caleb Ward, co-chair of the 2021 Ben J. Altheimer Moot Court Competition said that they were especially impressed with the second-year teams that participated. "Students usually participate in oral arguments during the spring of their first year, however, those arguments had been cancelled due to the pandemic and the second-year students came into the competition without ever having done this before."

The annual competition, named after Arkansas attorney and philanthropist Ben J. Altheimer, is hosted by the University of Arkansas School of Law Board of Advocates. The student-run board organizes three internal competitions annually — the William H. Sutton Barrister's Union Trial Competition, the Altheimer Competition and Client Advocacy Competitions — either a negotiations or client counseling competition — which lead to the selection of moot court, trial and dvocacy competition teams that travel to regional and national competitions.

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