ADC Interns Successful in “Court”

Each year, ADC receives hundreds of applications from highly qualified law students from across the United States for the Summer Legal Associate positions. This summer, ADC welcomed four law students who spent 10 weeks addressing all aspects of ADC’s legal work. This year’s class of legal associates included: Ms. Salua V. Baida from the American University Washington College of Law; Ms. Jordan Lane from the University of Virginia School of Law; Mr. Fadil Mamoun Bayyari from Washington and Lee University School of Law; and Mr. David Moreno from the University of Baltimore School of Law.
In addition to oral arguments, each student was required to write an appellate brief with a minimum of 15-pages on the Moot Court problem. The fact pattern for this year’s competition, which included written briefs and oral arguments, addressed the First Amendment and the level of constitutional protections afforded religious attire in a court of law.
This year’s competition was judged by Tefft Smith, Esq., Senior Litigation Partner with Kirkland & Ellis, LLP; Eric Treene, Esq., Special Counsel for Religious Discrimination at the US Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division; and Timothy Edgar, Esq., Deputy Civil Liberties Protection Officer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Jordan Lane received the honor of “Best Brief” and Fadil Bayyari received “Best Oralist” at the competition. Both students were recognized for their achievement.
The competition was named after the renowned jurist Ibn Rushd better known as Averroes. Ibn Rushd was a Muslim Andalusian philosopher, jurist, and physician born in 1126 in Cordoba, Spain. He came from a family of legal scholars and was judge in Seville and later served in many court appointments in Cordoba and Morocco. His most famous work, The Decisive Treatise, which spans three decades, stresses the importance of analytical thinking in contrast to the more orthodox theological approach where the emphasis on extensive knowledge of sources. He is often labeled as the father of modern secularism.
Hebrew translations of his work also had a lasting impact on Jewish philosophy. In the Christian world, his ideas were assimilated by Thomas Aquinas and others, especially at the University of Paris, which valued Aristotelian logic. Famous scholastics such as Aquinas believed him to be so important they did not refer to him by name, simply calling him “The Commentator” and calling Aristotle “The Philosopher.”

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