Orlando, Fla. – A team from the Barry Law School was crowned co-champions of the National Trial Competition Southeast Regional held on the Barry Law School campus Feb. 3-5, 2012. The Barry team, featuring advocates Jordan Ostroff and Andrew Doyle and witnesses Michael Tricoli and Tamar Gelin, defeated a team from the Stetson University College of Law to earn the championship. In the other finals of the competition, a team from Cumberland School of Law at Samford University defeated a team from the University of Florida College of Law.
By emerging as co-champions of the regional competition, both Barry and Cumberland School of Law qualified to compete in the 37th annual National Trial Competition on March 21-24, 2012, in Austin, Texas. The National Trial Competition is sponsored by the Texas Young Lawyers Association and is one of the two largest trial team competitions in the United States.
The competition featured the presentation of several complete mock trials by 24 teams of students from 12 law schools from Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. In addition to the final four teams, other schools that competed were Alabama, Ave Maria, Faulkner, Florida Coastal, Florida State, Miami, Mississippi College and Nova Southeastern.
The trial chosen for the competition was the fictional motor vehicle negligence / wrongful death case of Dusty Stockard, individually and as administrator of the Estate of Channing Stockard v. Mitch Murphy. Judges and attorney evaluators assessed the teams on the basis of their trial skills as demonstrated through witness examinations, use of the evidence, and arguments.
The competition marked the first time that the Barry Law School served as host of an extramural skills competition. Many of the trials were held in the school’s Legal Advocacy Center, which opened last August and features five moot courtrooms.