Nikolai Morse '24
Editor-in-Chief
Pictured: Aquila Maliyekkal '24 and Sean Gray '24
Photo Credit: UVA Law
On Thursday, November 9, Aquila Maliyekkal ’24 and Sean Gray ’24 won the 95th Annual William Minor Lile Moot Court Competition. They argued against third-years Audrey Payne ’24 and Hunter Heck ’24. Held annually, the competition starts with a field of about fifty individual competitors who write briefs and argue student-written problems in a mock federal or state appeal. To reach the finals, these teams advanced through three previous rounds of the Competition in their second year and the fall of their third year. In each of the rounds, the students wrote a brief and presented an oral argument before a panel of judges on a problem written by a fellow law student.
In the final round, the competitors argued before a panel of three distinguished federal judges. The chief judge was Judge Allison Rushing, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, sitting in Asheville, North Carolina. The next judge, Judge Allison Nathan (who has judged the final round of Lile previously), is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, whose chambers are in New York City. The final judge, Judge Jesse M. Furman, also hails from New York City, where he is a judge on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Following the final round of oral argument, the judges joined the competitors and their families for a reception.
Ben Buell ’24 wrote this year’s problem, which was used in the semi-finals and final rounds. The problem concerned a computer programmer, James Oliver, who had been hired by a microchip manufacturer, Edison Technologies, to create a cybersecurity software program named Citadel. Nearly a decade later, Oliver learned that Edison sold dozens of copies of Citadel between 2014 and 2017. He promptly registered a copyright and sued for infringement as soon as it was secured. Edison Technologies appealed the decision of the district court, which found that Oliver owned the copyright and was able to receive damages.
In writing the problem, Buell focused on two issues common to copyright infringement suits: ownership of the copyright and the availability of damages. The first issue turned on whether Oliver was the sole owner, such that he possesses the exclusive right to distribute copies of the software, or whether Citadel was a “work made for hire,” in which case that right vests in Edison. Importantly, whether the software was a “work made for hire” turned on whether Oliver was an independent contractor or an employee of Edison while he built the software. Second, even if Oliver owned the copyright in Citadel, does the Copyright Act’s three-year statute of limitations for civil infringement claims preclude retrospective relief, such that his claims to damages stemming from Edison’s sales of Citadel from 2014 to 2017 were barred?
Buell said, “The problem was designed to test different skills. One issue was heavily fact-intensive and the other was a pure question of law on which there’s a significant circuit split. The second issue is on the cutting edge of copyright law–the Supreme Court will resolve the split this spring in Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy.”[1]
Indeed, Lile President Kathryn Kenny ’24 emphasized the efforts of the many students involved in administering the prestigious competition. “The Lile competition is fairly unique since it is entirely student run; students organize the rounds, research and write the problems for each round, serve as preliminary round judges, and invite judges for the semifinal and final rounds.” From the initial rounds, where students serve as judges and brief graders, up through the process of facilitating later rounds, Kenny affirmed that running the Lile competition had been among the most rewarding experiences in her law school career.
When asked how they decided to partner, Gray responded that “Aquila and I became friends on the first day of law school and never looked back. During 1L, after we both made the Extramural Moot Court team and once we heard about Lile, we decided that we'd team up.” Maliyekkal echoed Gray’s comments, noting also that while they are “very different people—our backgrounds, politics, and legal philosophies couldn't be further apart,” he had “improved tremendously as a thinker and writer just by being Sean's partner. I've improved as a person by being Sean's friend.”
Gray described the intensive writing process he and Maliyekkal followed: “We'd each write our portions, then come together and meticulously edit the brief as a whole. Highlights of our writing process included: debating whether the article ‘a’ needed to proceed every item in a list; arguing about the use of the past perfect tense; deleting most of the em-dashed phrases that we both litter throughout our writing; and workshopping way too many metaphors and one-liners. Sounds fun, right? Harmonizing our styles was one of the more demanding parts of the process, but it was also quite rewarding.” Maliyekkal agreed, noting that their “[writing] styles aren't vastly different, but we each certainly had our literary peccadilloes and hang-ups we had to negotiate with the other about. Some of the most fun we had came from competing with each other to come up with pithy lines we could pepper through the brief to make it an engaging read (or the closest a brief on copyright and statutes of limitations could get to it).”
Maliyekkal and Gray were thrilled to have won and spoke highly of the demanding experience, which spanned more than a year. Maliyekkal described it as “an intense but rewarding experience . . . It pushed me to become a better writer and advocate and allowed Sean and I to test our skills against people we respect tremendously.” Gray echoed these sentiments, calling it “one of my favorite experiences in law school . . . It honed skills that will serve me well for practice—I became a better writer, speaker, advocate, and teammate throughout. But most importantly, I had a great time working with my best friend.”
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[1] 60 F.4th 1325 (11th Cir. 2023).