4. Welcome from Chair

WELCOME FROM THE MOOT COURT BOARD CHAIR

It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to the Thirty-Fourth Annual Jeffrey G. Miller National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition (NELMCC). On behalf of the NELMCC Board and all of the faculty that made the competition possible, we are grateful to have you join us. For those who have participated before, we are gladdened at your return. For those joining us for the first time, welcome and we hope to have you again. And to everyone, thank you for your time and effort spent on preparations. You continue to impress us year after year with your dedication, understanding of the problem, and oral advocacy.

This competition would not be possible without the efforts of Pace faculty, staff, and students. This year, we would like to applaud you for all of the creative thinking and problem-solving to adapt and refine the virtual platform started last year. Lorraine Rubich, the Program Manager, Achinthi Vithanage, the Associate Director of Pace's Environmental Law Programs, and Anne Olson, the Program Coordinator, have been at the forefront of these endeavors, constantly working to bring to life what the Board envisioned. Your dedication and support do not go unnoticed and are indispensable to the continued success of NELMCC. We would also like to thank Professor Karl Coplan, the author of this year's problem, and our faculty advisory, along with Katie Horner, our 2022 Environmental Law Fellow, who assisted Professor Coplan in these efforts and writing the supplemental documents for the competition. We are so thankful for the knowledge and time you both have given towards the competition. Additionally, we thank Tony Solano, who has helped us with all the hurdles of the virtual format of the competition.

I would like to say thank you to the NELMCC Board for their constant support and countless hours of hard work: Gabriella Mickel, Zach Roy, and Amalia Talty, Co-Vice-Chairs of Judges; Daniel Guarracino and Mackenzie Moonan, Co-Vice-Chairs of Grading and Scoring; Andre Arias and Juls Duran-Buchsbaum, CoVice-Chairs of Hospitality; Madison Bialkowski and Tatjana Calimpong-Burke, Co-Vice Chairs of Rules; Megan Gaddy and Alexandra Tamburrino, Co-Vice-Chairs of Bailiffs; and Carolyn Rumrill, Vice-Chair of Fundraising. Thank you for offering your talents, ideas, and time to create a new standard and ensure that future competitions will run even smoother. I would also like to recognize the first and second-year students who served as committee members. It is truly awesome to see your interest and efforts to be involved in our esteemed environmental law program.

Thank you is also due to the members of Pace Environmental Law Review, Pace Law Review, and Pace International Law Review. Thank you to the editors for facilitating successful grading and to the associates who spent time over their winter break to check brief citations.

A special thank you to the attorneys who have set aside their time and taken on the essential roles of judges and brief graders for the competition. It is a privilege to have such bright legal minds involved in the competition to give competitors feedback to apply to their academic and professional careers. I would like to extend our utmost gratitude to those joining us as final round judges - you make the final round professional and memorable for both competitors and spectators.

Since before coming to law school, I wanted to participate in NELMCC. However, I did not imagine having the opportunity to serve as chair and interact with so many bright legal minds of the environmental law field. NELMCC has given me more than I could have envisioned and is a competition that serves as a

Best,

Christen T. Maccone