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Penn Law students win regional mock trial honors

December 02, 2015

The Penn Law team finished first in the ABA's Section of Labor and Employment Law regional competition in Miami and will be moving on to ...
The Penn Law team finished first in the ABA's Section of Labor and Employment Law regional competition in Miami and will be moving on to nationals.
Penn Law students finished first in the American Bar Association’s Section of Labor and Employment Law Miami regional competition and will now move on to compete in the national championship.

Penn Law students Catherine Eagan L’16, Sam Griffith L’16, Nina Shaw L’16, and Jack Wray L’17, finished first in the American Bar Association’s Section of Labor and Employment Law regional competition in Miami on November 21–22. Penn Law’s team will now move on to compete in the national championship against the other regional champions from schools across the country. 

This year’s competition involved a Family Medical Leave Act interference claim and a retaliatory discharge claim. The competitors’ performances were judged by practicing attorneys from the Miami region.  

After two preliminary rounds, the Penn Law team advanced to semi-finals as defense and ultimately to the finals as the plaintiff, besting a St. Thomas University team that won a national criminal championship in 2011 and the Labor and Employment Miami Regional in 2012.

After hours of examinations and opening and closing speeches by both sides, the judges declared the Penn Law team the regional champions.

Only eight teams from around the country won bids to the national championship, which will be held in New Orleans, Louisiana from January 23–24, 2016. 

Two of the Penn Law competitors, Sam Griffith and Nina Shaw, were also members of the mock trial team that won Outstanding Brief in the South Texas Mock Trial Challenge on March 28, 2015.

This semester, teams from Penn Law also competed at the National Civil Rights Trial Advocacy Competition and at the Georgetown White Collar Crime Invitational. The Penn Law White Collar Crime team placed fifth out of 22 teams from around the country and received an honorable mention. Penn Law’s mock trial teams are coached and supervised by Robert Englert L’06, a Philadelphia trial lawyer and an adjunct Lecturer in Law.