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Penn Law Mock Trial Team Wins Regional Championship

December 04, 2015

Penn Law students will be competing for another national trial advocacy competition championship. Catherine Eagan (3L), Sam Griffith (3L), Nina Shaw (3L), and Jack Wray (2L), finished first on November 21-22 in the American Bar Association Section of Labor and Employment Law Miami Regional competition. The facts of 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.  

 

Penn Law students will be competing for another national trial advocacy competition championship. Catherine Eagan (3L), Sam Griffith (3L), Nina Shaw (3L), and Jack Wray (2L), finished first on November 21-22 in the American Bar Association Section of Labor and Employment Law Miami Regional competition. The facts of 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 (2) 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. Penn Law’s team will now move on to compete in the National Championship against the other regional champions from schools across the country.  Only 8 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 (3L) and Nina Shaw (3L), 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 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 5th 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, a Philadelphia trial lawyer and an adjunct Lecturer in Law.