Post Date: April 5, 2005
“This is the European equivalent of pleading before flesh-and-blood judges of the US Supreme Court,” said Charles Massa, LL.M. candidate and an oralist on the team, “with the European twist that you must deploy eloquence and field questions both in English and in French.”
The team faced three other schools in Luxembourg: the College of Europe, Maastricht University and Georgetown University. Tim Corthaut, LL.M. candidate and a coach for the team, said the Harvard competitors met in their own time to prepare and master a complex field of European law so well that they could “compete with specialized institutions like the College of Europe or Maastricht University.”
The Harvard students who participated in the competition were LL.M. candidates Charles Massa (Belgium), Katherine Apps (England), Nana Sumrada (Slovenia) and Juan Ignacio Signes de Mesa (Spain) with Tim Corthaut (Belgium) and Katjia Plaustajner (Slovenia) as coaches.
The team received additional support from students in the LL.M. program, Professor David Kennedy, Lecturer Jean-Francois Verstrynge, the European Law Research Center (ELRC), the Graduate Program and the Dean of Students Office and the Harvard European Law Student Association (HELA).