Brendan Moore Trial Advocacy Center

The Brendan Moore Trial Advocacy Center is where trial advocacy lives at Fordham University School of Law. Second, third, and fourth-year law students participate in trial advocacy programs, workshops, classes, and interscholastic tournament-style competitions. Moore Advocates compete nationally in approximately twenty trial competitions every year.

Students are selected to join the team through the Summer and Fall Intraschool Competitions. Students invited to join the Moore Advocates are eligible to compete in various regional and national trial advocacy competitions throughout the country.

Each team is coached by practicing attorneys, most of whom are Moore alumni. The competitors may earn course credit for introductory or advanced trial advocacy through participation on one of these interschool teams.

About the Center

In 1995, Fordham Law School established the Brendan Moore Advocacy Center to foster the teaching and study of lawyers as advocates at the trial level. The Center was made possible through the generosity of Thomas A. Moore (class of 1972) in memory of his brother, Brendan Moore.

Today the Brendan Moore Advocacy Center provides all of Fordham’s “hands-on” training in trial advocacy. In courses and trial competitions, law students learn the diverse practical skills of trying a lawsuit before a jury through the intense “performance-critique-repeat” process of preparing for and then conducting simulated trials.

At Fordham, we believe every student who wants to compete in a trial competition should get that opportunity. Among the nation's most prominent law school programs, the Center provides between 50 and 60 students a year with the singular experience of participating in a formal, tournament-style mock trial competition.

Each team of 4 students is paired with two highly skilled alumni Adjunct Professors of Trial Advocacy. Competition preparation includes fact analysis, case theory development, examination drafting and performance, jury address drafting and performance, witness preparation, legal arguments about the admissibility of evidence under the Federal Rules of Evidence, and the ethics of professional advocacy. The close supervision made possible by a 2-to-1 student-to-faculty ratio and the shared purpose of excelling during the competition combine to create a transformative performance-based learning experience.