"So this is what the inside of a courtroom looks like."
-A Few Good Men
Mock Trial gives law students real trial experience at a competitive level. Students participate in nationwide competitions that give them opportunities to give opening and closing statements, and to direct- and cross-examine witnesses. For students interested in litigation, Mock Trial is an invaluable experience to develop skills that other courses cannot provide.
LATEST NEWS
UW Law School has been invited to participate in the NITA Tournament of Champions 2011The UW Law School will compete in the NITA Tournament of Champions in New York, October 27-30. This team is coached by Adjunct Professors Rhonda Lanford and Ellen Berz. The competitors are Kori Ashley, Tyler Wilkinson, Carolyn Orr, and Kerry Gabrielson.
UW Law School participated in the ABA Criminal Mock Trial Competition
This tournament was held in Chicago March 31-April 2, 2011. This team is coached by Adjunct Professors Rhonda Lanford and Ellen Berz.
UW Law school participated in the American Association of Justice Regional Tournament
This tournament was March 3-6, 2011 in Kansas City Missouri. This team is coached by Mario White and Kristen Lonergan.
UW Law School participated in the prestigious “Tournament of Champions”
The Tournament of Champions, sponsored by the National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA), is an invitational competition. The competitors are part of the nation’s sixteen top ranked trial schools. The competition is a grueling one and ultimately the winner of the competition has the honor of calling itself the best trial school in the nation.
Hundreds of trial teams compete nationally to earn the privilege of being invited to this competition. Teams are selected on the basis of their demonstrated record of achievement during the past three years in regional and national competitions, such as those sponsored by the American Association of Justice (AAJ), formerly the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA), the Tournament of Champions and the National Trial Competition, which is co-sponsored by the Texas Young Lawyers Association and the American College of Trial Lawyers.
The competition was held at the Duquesne University School of Law from Thursday, October 28, 2010 through Saturday, October 30, 2010.
The team was coached by Adjunct Professors Rhonda Lanford and Ellen Berz.
National Civil Trial Competition
The UW-Law School mock trial team has been invited to compete in the prestigious National Civil Trial Competition. The tournament was held in Los Angeles, CA, November 4th-8th 2010.
AAJ National Championship
Winners
The UW-Law School mock trial team won the national championship of the American Association for Justice (AAJ) mock trial competition 2010. The AAJ competition is among the largest mock trial competitions in the country with 224 teams participating. Some of those teams included Duke, Marquette, Northwestern, Notre Dame, University of Virginia, Cornell, Georgetown, University of Texas-Austin, Stanford, NYU and UCLA. After winning the regional competition (a first in UW history,) the UW team joined 13 other teams to compete for the national title.
After besting formidable opponents like NYU and Pepperdine in the
preliminary rounds, the UW team defeated Georgetown in the championship round.
The winning team included:
Andrew Rima, 3L
Hanna Kolberg, 3L
Kerry
Gabrielson, 1L
Matt Van Keulen, 2L
Each team member will receive a
2,500
scholarship, complimentary copies of acclaimed books on trial advocacy, and
complimentary airline tickets and hotel accommodations to attend the 2010 AAJ
convention in Vancouver, Canada.
The winning team was coached by Adjunct Faculty Rhonda Lanford (Habush Habush and Rottier) and
Ellen Berz (State Public Defenders Office.)
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AAJ Regional Competition (2 teams)
First and Second place! Final showdown between the UW teams!
A first in University of Wisconsin Law School history was achieved in Detroit. Wisconsin Mock Trial sent two teams to the prestigious American Association for Justice Mock Trial competition. Both Wisconsin teams advanced to the Regional Finals -- meaning they were the two teams that had to compete against each other to determine the one team which would advance to national finals. They did this by not just winning their multiple rounds of competition, but by having perfect scores (all ballots) in all of their rounds. The Regional Final between our two teams was a very close round. In the end, there was a tie-breaking ballot by the presiding judge. Our very impressive second place team was composed of:
Kristin Lonergan 3L
Olga Tarasova 3L
Tyler Wilkinson 1L
Kori Ashley 1L
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ABA Labor and Employment Law Competition
Second place
The University of Wisconsin Mock Trial Team took Second Place at the 6th Annual Regional ABA Labor and Employment Law Competition on November 23, 2009. The competition was held at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in Chicago. The team included Joe Ahlers (’11), Amelia Buragas (’11), Eric Christoffersen (’10), and Katy Morgan-Davies (’11).
Another Wisconsin team was the highest scoring team in the preliminary rounds and made it to the competition’s semi-final round. That team included Erin Deeley (’11), Devon Rembert-Carroll (’11), Bethany Nelson (’10), and Nathan Otis (’10).
A special thanks to the team coaches, Peter Jarosz from the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Mario White from the Wisconsin Public Defender’s Office, who tirelessly mentored their teams.
