KU Law graduate credits moot court with shaping his legal skills

As a Kansan with deep ties to his home state, Carson Cargill, L’26, knew he wanted to attend a law school in the region where he hoped to build his long-term career. 

“No school is better connected to this legal market and more apt for this goal,” he said.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Kansas, he immersed himself in opportunities both inside and outside of the classroom. During law school, he competed in moot court and mock trial competitions across the country and served on the Kansas Journal of Law and Public Policy, first as a staff editor and later as an articles editor.

Among those experiences, he says moot court left the greatest impact on him.

“Moot court has been the most impactful part of my law school experience, allowing me to significantly strengthen my public speaking and oral advocacy skills,” he said. 

After gaining valuable experience at competitions during his second year, he and his moot court partner, Liz Raehpour, advanced to the Final Four at the Wagner National Labor and Employment Law Moot Court Competition during his third year. The pair earned the best preliminary round team award and finished third overall.

“I know that I will use my skills developed on moot court throughout my legal career.”

One memory from the competition remains especially meaningful to Cargill. During the awards banquet, he and Raehpour learned they had been named Best Preliminary Round Team. After celebrating the unexpected honor together, Cargill stepped away to call his family.

“The hallway lights were dim, illuminated only by the brilliance of lower Manhattan on a brisk February night shining through the floor-to-ceiling windows,” he recalled. “In that moment, I was struck by the radically different worlds on each end of the phone: me in New York, holding a plaque and overlooking Tribeca, and my family in Isabel, Kansas, on the farm where I was raised. I found myself exactly between the life that raised me and the one I was building. I’ll never forget that night.”

Back at Green Hall, one of his most memorable academic experiences came through Professor Steve Ware’s bankruptcy course. Although he took several classes with him, the material from that course in particular feels especially relevant to Cargill’s future career. 

“Taking a class that directly connects to my practice area, with such an engaging professor, makes it stand out,” he said. “Professor Ware has a way of engaging students in dialogue that really deepens understanding of the material. This was true in my first semester contracts with him as well as my final semester in bankruptcy. What great bookends to my law school career.”

His interest in financial services law developed unexpectedly during his first summer internship with Lathrop GPM in Kansas City. After receiving an impromptu project from an attorney in the firm’s financial services group, he discovered that he genuinely enjoyed the practice area. In fact, Cargill enjoyed it so much that he decided to work for Lathrop GPM again the following summer and will be joining the firm as a full-time attorney in its banking and financial services practice group this fall.

“I’ve come to really enjoy working at the intersection of law and business considerations,” he said. “I’ve come to appreciate how much of the business world, and business law more broadly, is shaped by finance and the creditor-debtor relationship.”

Through coursework, journal work and advocacy competitions, KU Law helped prepare him for the next stage of his career.

“KU Law taught me how to think and work like a lawyer,” he said. “I learned how to break down a problem, identify the legal issues and form a solution. The combination of coursework and practical experiences trained me to approach legal problems with a methodical mindset and, perhaps most importantly, confidence.”

-By Casey Bacot