Rock On: Albany Law’s Moot Court Program Continues to Thrive

As the faculty advisor to the Anthony V. Cardona ’70 Moot Court Program, Professor Jerry Rock is empowering Albany Law School’s students with keys to success: intensive practical training, experience, and networking, to name a few.

This past year, under the guidance of Professor Rock, the student-run Moot Court Board organized four intra-school competitions in addition to the Domenick L. Gabrielli Family Law Competition, which drew 21 teams from 17 different U.S. law schools. Students also competed in several other national competitions. The spring trial team—Ryan Murphy ’18, Rhiannon Spencer ’18, Alex Tesoriero ’17 and Samantha Vedder ’17—was personally coached by Professor Rock for the Student Advocacy Trial Competition in Boston, Massachusetts.

Through these annual competitions, students gain valuable practice-ready experience in legal research, analysis, writing, and oral advocacy. And they are seeing results. One graduate, Alexandra Scoville '16, recently won second prize in New York University School of Law’s inaugural moot court writing competition. Her problem—which she wrote for the 2015 Gabrielli competition—will be published in NYU’s prestigious Moot Court Casebook.

Professor Rock has been busy outside the moot court program, too. He presented “Sgt. Joe Friday 2.0: Teaching Students to Investigate and Work with More than ‘Just the Facts’” at the 17th Biennial Conference of the Legal Writing Institute in Portland, Oregon, and served as a panelist on “Bringing Diverse Clients and Diversity Issues to the Legal Writing Classroom” at a Brooklyn Law School conference.

Prior to joining the faculty at Albany Law, Professor Rock was an assistant attorney general in the Litigation Bureau of the New York State Department of Law. There he represented the state in civil actions and proceedings in state and federal courts.

Professor Rock has extensive jury trial experience in federal court, handling all types of litigation—including civil rights and employment discrimination actions. He was also previously a litigation assistant at the law firm DeGraff, Foy, Kunz & Devine, with an emphasis in employment discrimination. From 1997 to 1999, he clerked for U.S. Magistrate Judge David R. Homer.

He is a graduate of Manhattan College and Albany Law School, Class of 1997.