NCCU Law 1Ls take Silver in K-S competition

The unexpected miracle run had to end eventually, and today was the day

But after a hard-fought trial in a rematch against Duke Law, the NCCU Law 1L Trial Team — the Legal Eagles — still finished in 2nd place in the 2010 Kilpatrick-Stockton 1L Mock Trial Competition

I’ll confess there were some aspects of the final that had me in a certifiably frosty mood when I left the UNCCH Law building earlier this afternoon, but the particulars aren’t the type of thing worth detailing in a family-friendly forum like law:/dev/null I will say our entire team turned in an excellent performance, and it’s been an honor to serve as their captain

Top 4 teams in the 2010 Kilpatrick-Stockton 1L Mock Trial Competition

Something that was worth pointing out (at least IMO) is this chart I put together of the final 4 teams.

Now I know several of my Duke Law friends will argue with this chart — as some already have — claiming that the difference in cost of attendance is irrelevant, since their salaries at summer associateships and after graduation will more than make up for the extra law school expense.

And they’re certainly right… to an extent.

But given my aspirations to spend my career in public service, on top of my acquired distaste for BigLaw, I’d be lucky to pull down in a year what the Duke grads will make in a month. Keeping that in mind, and considering both of us made it to the finals in this particular competition, as of now I’d say we’ve got the better Return-On-Investment

The folks over at Fight the Hypo wrote this entry on the topic of ROI a few weeks ago.

Aside from the clichéd “bang for your buck,” this is also one of those cases where I really can’t consider a loss as a loss: when the judges announced the results this afternoon and handed me a certificate for our team’s performance, the crowd was told “If this were a real trial, the verdict would be to acquit.”

So we lost the competition… but won our case. As much as I love being #1, it’s gratifying to know a client paying us would have gotten their money’s worth

Here’s how the final competition turned out for us over 4 days:

• Round 1A:  UNCCH 1 vs. NCCU (W)
• Round 1B:  NCCU vs. Campbell 3 (W)
• Round 2:  NCCU vs. Campbell 1 (W)
• Round 3:  UNCCH 7 vs. NCCU (W)
• Round 4:  NCCU vs. Duke 1 (W)
• Round 5:  Duke 1 vs. NCCU (L)

I’d be ecstatic if my Wolfpack could keep an 83% win-loss ratio in football (or basketball, or hell any sport for that matter ) — so I’m pretty doggone happy+proud of us

And now I can finally go back to reading the cases I’m paying that $8K in tuition+fees to study

Many thanks to all of you who commented and emailed and FB’d me to send your support, it meant a lot! I’m hoping I’ll be able to repay the gesture at some point over the next 2 years

Tags: 1L, Christie, Co-Counsel, Competence FTW, K-S 1L Mock Trial Competition, Legal Eagles FTW, Tinkerbell, Trial Team