Wayne Law Student From Shelby Among the Best Internationally

Shelby Township resident Rachel Hom was a member of the five-member Wayne State University Law School team which placed highly in the Philip C. Jessup International Moot Court competition held earlier this month.

Hom, a third-year student, was the chancellor of the team called "the famous ladies of Wayne State" which finished 18th in the world. She also finished seventh in the world as best speaker in the competition.

“The Jessup is something much larger than a moot court competition,” said Hom in a release. “It represents the evolving world realities and the direction that international law is heading, leaving it up to the students to implement the changes we’d like to see. At the onset of the week, we were all given notebooks with this reminder: ‘In the future, world leaders will look at each other differently because they first met here as friends.’”

She was joined by teammates Kaitlyn Cramer, of Frankenmuth, Jessica Wayne of Northville, Bonsitu Kitaba of Missassauga, Ontario, and Klaudia Nikolli of Windsor, Ontario, competed against 111 other law school teams from 82 nations in Washington, D.C., for the final round of the 2013 Jessup competition. 

“The Wayne team came away from the Jessup tournament with a set of remarkable accomplishments,” said Professor Gregory Fox, faculty advisor to the team and director of the Program for International Studies at Wayne Law, in a release. “After finishing 18th in the world in the preliminary rounds, they faced India in the first elimination round. Unfortunately, we lost the round by one point out of nine possible points. But the loss had an important post-script: The Indian team went on to win the entire tournament. So we came very close to beating the world champion. As far as we know, this is the best showing ever by a Wayne Jessup team.”

Law School Dean Jocelyn Benson acknowledged the work of the students, faculty and Miller Canfield senior litigation partners in preparation for the competition.

“I am immensely proud of these exceptional students who have earned a great achievement,” said Benson, in a release. “They have mastered some very difficult international law issues and developed skills they will use for the rest of their careers.”

For the competition, students prepare oral and written pleadings arguing both the applicant and respondent positions of the fictional problem case, engaging the teammates in legal research as well as preparing written submissions to a court and presenting oral arguments in a courtroom setting, according to a release. Wayne Law’s team finished 19th in the world this year for best brief.

“We just feel lucky to be a part of this whole experience, and give endless thanks to the Wayne Law faculty and Detroit area attorneys for volunteering their time, effort and financing to allow us to get here.”