The Trial Advocacy Team from
The Massachusetts School of Law at Andover
Wins the 2008 Northeast
Thurgood Marshall Mock Trial Competition
Massachusetts School of Law’s Trial Advocacy Team won the 2008 Thurgood Marshall Mock Trial Competition for the Northeast region of the National Black Law Students Association. The Northeast region is comprised of the 33 law schools in New England, New York and northern New Jersey. MSL sent four teams to the regional competition in Newark, New Jersey and in a tremendous display of advocacy by the students, all of MSL’s teams advanced first to the quarterfinals and then on to the semifinals. The semifinals were thus comprised of only well-matched MSL teams. Team members are Rebecca Jadach, Karen Lucien, Dayo Aina, Nicole Dion, Jonas Pierre, Andre Cayo, Anne Hemingway, Alicia Kenney-Montero, Darius Greene, Allen Woodward, Daniel Occena, Stephen Kearney, Carolyn Hanania, David Walker, Kimberly Gillespie, Mirlande Joachim, and Ida Candreva. Associate Dean Michael Coyne, attorney and Professor Dan Harayda and Middlesex County Assistant District Attorney Joseph Filippetti serve as the coaches of MSL’s Trial Advocacy team.
Both the semifinals and finals saw thoroughly poised teams try their cases in a professional, civil and courteous manner. The teams exhibited mutual respect for each another as they had worked side by side preparing for the trial competition for nearly three months. MSL teams demonstrated outstanding advocacy skills in every facet of the trials. Throughout the competition, the teams displayed a high level of sophistication in a complex criminal trial with complicated evidentiary and criminal procedure issues. The finals matched MSL students Jonas Pierre, Andre Cayo, Anne Hemingway and Alicia Kenney-Montero representing the government pursuing criminal charges against the defendant represented by fellow MSL students Ida Candreva, Mirlande Joachim, David Walker and Kim Gillespie with the victory going to the government.
At this year’s regional competition held at Rutgers University, MSL defeated teams from Syracuse University Law School (last year’s winner of the Northeast region over MSL’s team that came in second last year and advanced to the national finals in Atlanta), St. John’s University Law School, Harvard University Law School and other northeastern law schools. Two of MSL’s teams were the top ranked teams after the conclusion of the preliminary rounds of the trials. The award for best trial advocate of the competition went to MSL team member Nicole Dion along with a student from Rutgers University Law School. For the second year in a row, MSL’s team won more awards than any other law school in the Northeast regional mock trial competition. Columbia University Law School won more awards than any other school in the moot court competition also held at Rutgers during the BLSA regional convention.
MSL’s teams now advance to the national finals in Detroit from March 26-30th with the 10 other winners from the remaining five regions across the United States. At the national finals, MSL’s teams will face teams from some of the best trial advocacy programs in the United States. Teams that will be completing at the nation finals include the University of Virginia School of Law, the University of Miami School of Law (ranked 3rd last year in the national competition), DePaul University School of Law and Texas Tech University School of Law. Two other regions have yet to hold their regional competition.
Coaches Harayda and Filippetti praised team members for their professionalism and skill as advocates. In praising the team’s performance, Dean Coyne said, “We could not ask any more from this team. Their extraordinary efforts and performance truly represents the best of what our profession can offer and what a school should expect of all its students. To have 16 students work collegially as a team supporting and encouraging one another from December to the end of February while planning their case so completely that they could dominate the end of the competition as they did is remarkable. What makes it even more astonishing are the tremendous teams that each MSL team had to beat to get to the semifinals especially the well-prepared and professional teams from Syracuse University Law School, St. John’s University Law School and Touro Law School. The School is extraordinarily proud of the team’s efforts. It is a pleasure to see the team embody MSL’s work ethic and demonstrate the fruits of that hard work and MSL’s educational program.” The entire Massachusetts School of Law community has much to be proud of with their team’s performance at the 2008 NBLSA’s Thurgood Marshall Mock Trial Competition.
2007 Team
Trial Advocacy Team Successful in National Competition |
