A first in University of Wisconsin Law School history was achieved this weekend. Wisconsin Mock Trial sent two teams to the prestigious American Association for Justice Mock Trial competition. This competition involves 224 teams from law schools across the country, including Duke, Northwestern, Notre Dame, University of Virginia, Cornell, Georgetown, University of Texas–Austin, Stanford, NYU, UCLA, George Washington, Emory and Washington University. Of those 224 teams, only 14 advance to the national finals.

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 reached the finals 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. The second place team was composed of:

Kori Ashley

Kristin Lonergan

Olga Tarasova

Tyler Wilkinson

The regional winning team that will be among the 14 teams competing in the national finals is composed of:

Kerry Gabrielson

Hanna Kolberg

Andrew Rima

Matthew Van Keulen

The team thanks coaches -- Rhonda Lanford and Ellen Berz – who contributed countless hours of teaching and encouragement throughout the semester. The team is also grateful for the generous financial support from Robert L. Habush (UW Law 1961).

Submitted by Mullen Dowdal on March 3, 2010

This article appears in the categories: Student Organizations