For the second year in a row, the law school hosted the National Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Moot Court Competition, but this time, the fictional legal scenario at the heart of the contest bore an uncanny resemblance to reality.

High school students from eight cities descended on the law school March 20-21 to argue a Fourth Amendment case conjured by three prescient 3Ls.

Teens who had won local meets in Baton Rouge, La., Boston, Mass., Camden, N.J., Louisville, Ky., New Haven, Conn., Tempe, Ariz. and Washington, D.C. - as well as Philadelphia - represented either a teen suspected of selling test answers to classmates or a principal who searched her computer and pants pockets.

The competitors had been groomed by law students in their respective home towns as part of the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project, which promotes knowledge of the American legal system among teens in urban schools.

In the case they argued, school officials had reviewed keystroke data on district-owned computers used by students suspected of running a cheating operation. The principal later conducted a physical search of one student in a hallway filled with her classmates.

The fictional scenario was no less credible than a real-life drama in Lower Merion, Pa. that made national headlines in February, when a student's parents filed a lawsuit alleging that school officials used the webcam on a district-owned laptop computer to spy on their son. State and federal authorities launched an investigation amid claims the district secretly activated dozens of webcams as students used their laptops at home.

Yet Earle Mack School of Law 3Ls Mike DiFilipo, Emily Foote and Kim Magrini started crafting a competition problem set that turned on a similar scenario long before the Lower Merion case became public.

"We started over the summer with the research and problem formation," Magrini recalled.

Moot-court-bound high school students have previously tackled Fourth Amendment matters in the context of illicit drugs, so the 3Ls opted for a different approach.

"With Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, blogging, and the increasing use of technology in schools, we thought it would be interesting to come up with a technology-based privacy problem," Magrini said. "It took a bit of time and effort to get to the key- logging, but it fit in with the type of issue we wanted to highlight."

Once news of the Lower Merion case hit, DiFilipo said he was disappointed.

"When I heard about the allegations in Lower Merion, I wished that we had thought of that," he said.

One of the four finalists selected to argue the final round was Sharon Calvin, a senior at Philadelphia's Creative and Performing Arts High School, who was coached by 2Ls Dennis Chow and Amanda Stewart.

Calvin said she really appreciated learning about her rights and said the Marshall- Brennan program has inspired her to give up her plans to teach English in favor of a legal career.

"I've discovered that I really enjoy arguing," she said.

Chow said he relished the opportunity to share what law students consider "common knowledge" about the constitution, while Stewart enjoyed seeing students who had been withdrawn in school catch fire with the subject matter.