AUWCL's Mock Trial Regional Champions Head to Nationwide Competition
at the National Trial Competition Regional Tournament
On Feb. 12 – 14, 2016, American University Washington College of Law’s mock trial honor society scored another victory, adding to the team’s impressive performance this academic year.
Competing against 18 student teams from 11 law schools in D.C., Md., and Va. in the 2016 National Trial Competition Regional Tournament, 3L Justin Nemeroff and 2L Kara Simmons won all of their judges’ ballots through five rounds of competition. Nemeroff was also awarded Best Advocate in the final round.
Strategy and Practice
The student duo, coached by Aimee Ghosh’12, Cristina Hillyer, and Liz Lippy, assistant director of Stephen S. Weinstein Trial Advocacy Program, secured a spot in the national rounds of the prestigious competition. Since 1975, the National Trial Competition has been widely recognized as one of the two top U.S. law school mock trial tournaments. In the end of March, Nemeroff and Simmons will compete against 28 regional champions in Dallas, Texas.
Both students and the law school administrators credit the team’s success to practice and sound case strategy the team’s coaches developed.
“Justin, Kara, and their coaches clocked countless hours in preparation for this competition, and it showed,” says Elizabeth Boals, associate director of Stephen S. Weinstein Trial Advocacy Program at American University Washington College of Law. “The students were exceptional in every round and will be excellent representatives at nationals.”
Nemeroff agrees with Boals. “Our late nights and weekends in the class courtrooms paid off, but I would never have imagined we would go through the tournament without losing a judge’s ballot,” the student says.
Success at Home
The Greater Washington area regional round was held at American University Washington College of Law’s new campus and co-hosted by the University of Maryland trial advocacy program. With five teaching courtrooms and expanded meeting and conference space, the new campus provided an opportunity for more than 140 current law students to participate in the mock trials as witnesses.
The competition, which coincided with the celebration weekend for the new Tenley Campus, also welcomed 150 practitioners and judges, who served as trial judges and evaluators.
‘A Force to Be Reckoned with’
A record number of members of the American College of Trial Lawyers, a prestigious, invitational-only organization for the country’s top rated trial attorneys, served as judges and evaluators for the competition this year.
American University Washington College of Law alumni Skippy Weinstein and Karen Lockwood, director of the National Institute of Trial Advocacy, presided over the semi-final and final rounds, respectively.
Nemeroff and Simmons will continue to work hard to prepare for the nationals and further prove to the mock trial community that American University Washington College of Law is, as the students put it, “a force to be reckoned with.”