Law School to Co-host National Trial Competition Regional

  • by Joseph Martin

UC Davis School of Law will co-host the National Trial Competition Regional February 17-19 at the U.S. District Courthouse in Sacramento.  Working with University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law, King Hall will oversee the three-day tournament, with two UC Davis teams slated to participate, dozens of students playing roles as witnesses, and numerous alumni volunteering as evaluators. 

The competition, which is co-sponsored by the American College of Trial Lawyers and the Texas Young Lawyers Association, is hosted every year by a different school within the region, which includes all of Northern California and Nevada.  UC Davis School of Law hosts the competition every fifth or sixth year, and "On every occasion, it is a massive undertaking, involving our students, faculty, and alumni," said Professor Edward Imwinkelried.

Professor Imwinkelried is working with McGeorge Professors Thomas J. Leach and Cary Bricker and the King Hall Trial Practice Honors Board to conduct the tournament. Roughly 120 witnesses and 70 evaluators must be recruited, he said, and Barbara Borkowsky '11 and Ngoc Le '11 deserve special credit for taking on the hard work of witness recruitment.

The two UC Davis teams are made up of Christian Acevedo '13, Peter McGuiness '11, and John Stoller '12, and William McKenna '12, Jose Olivera '11, and Matt Pearson '13.  They are coached by Daniel Boone '90 with assistance from Professor Miguel Méndez, who served as a consultant on evidentiary issues.

Also scheduled to participate are teams of law students from UC Berkeley, Golden Gate University, Santa Clara University, UC Hastings, Stanford University, University of the Pacific, and University of San Francisco.  

At the tournament, local judges and attorneys-many of them King Hall alumni-will be serving as evaluators, and Ryan Cadry '11, Melissa Ignacio '11, Justin Kochan '11, Dan Raff '11, and Autumn Simpson '11 will be working with Professor Imwinkelried to compile and record results.  Tournament activity will run from 2:30-9:00 pm on February 17, from 4:30-10:00pm on the 18th, and 8:30 am-5:30 pm on the 19th.