Law Students Put in the Roles of Nation’s Top Decision-Makers

Georgetown University hosted the National Security Crisis
Law Invitational for law students.
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A two-day program at Georgetown University Law Center acted as a simulation on how to mitigate a threat for 80 law students. Asked to use public opinion, politics and the law to ease the crisis, the students from all over the country participated in the National Security Crisis Law Invitational, created eight years ago by the director of Georgetown’s Center on National Security and the Law, Laura Donohue.

“There is a lot about how we teach in law school that doesn’t work for students who are jumping into national security law,” said Donohue. “We teach the law as it is written, not how it is applied. Law is one of the many competing considerations during a national security crisis. How do you talk with policymakers? How do you bring the law into the conversation?”

Students prepared for the program by studying for months in advance, reading up on national security law, as their reactions and decisions during the two-day event were observed by experts in the field of national security, such as James Baker, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.

This was only the second year students from outside Georgetown were invited to participate, with law students coming from American University Washington College of Law, Cornell Law School, University of Virginia School of Law and New York University School of Law, to name a few.

Notable alumni from these law universities are previous New York mayor Rudy Giuliani from New York University School of Law; Chris Lanning, Managing Director of General Atlantic, a graduate from University of Virginia school of Law, and Milton Gould, founding partner of Shea & Gould.

Not only did teams include acting judges and US Department of Justice heads, students were expected to arrange hearings, schedule meetings, contact other players as well as write legislation and pass resolutions. As a court simulation that has only been offered for eight years, the four-person teams under the guidance of Director William C. Banks are of the youngest generation to undergo such a formal invitational, and thus will have a leg up in their law careers than those of alumni past.