NCCU Law 1Ls *sweep* Kilpatrick-Townsend competition!!
Hey everybody! 
Sorry I’ve been MIA for nearly a month now, I’ve been sequestered in my own personal 3L Hell for most of that time and just haven’t had much opportunity to update the blog 
I’ll try to get things caught up some time this coming weekend, but for now I wanted to mention our 1L trial teams completely dominated the annual Kilpatrick-Townsend 1L Trial Advocacy Competition this year!
We had one team win 1st place, one team win 2nd place, and a third team (who was eliminated in a head-to-head matchup with the first team) taking #1 in overall quality points. Every single match where NCCU Law had a team — 6 total preliminary rounds, 2 separate quarterfinals, 2 separate semifinals, and the final round — someone from that team won the round’s award for Best Advocate.1
So basically we’ve got the 3 very best 1L trial teams in the State of North Carolina 
Here’s the press release we put together and a team photo:
NCCU LAW 1Ls SWEEP STATEWIDE TRIAL ADVOCACY COMPETITION
Legal Eagles Take 1st Place, 2nd Place, Best Advocate AwardsFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DURHAM, NC (01/15/12) – Defeating trial teams from Campbell, Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Wake Forest, 1Ls from the North Carolina Central University School of Law (“NCCU Law”) made history this weekend when they won both 1st Place and 2nd Place in the annual Kilpatrick-Townsend 1L Trial Advocacy Competition hosted by the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Law.
NCCU Law's three 1L trial teams for 2011-12
In just NCCU Law’s third year participating in the competition, the school’s three 1L trial teams advanced to the final round for the third straight time — a 100% record of reaching the finals.
But this year’s competition featured a twist: after practicing against each other for 6+ hours a day from January 2nd-11th, Legal Eagles dominated every other school so thoroughly that both finalists were from NCCU Law, guaranteeing a 1st Place finish in the competition for the first time in school history. The only team to beat NCCU Law was another team from NCCU Law.
“Hard work plus confidence equals success,” said Jonathan Savage ’14, lead counsel for the 1st Place team and winner of the competition’s Best Advocate Overall award. “The hours of practice were well worth it, and I’m so grateful to have had this opportunity!”
Going into Saturday’s quarterfinals, all NCCU Law teams were in the Top 8: the #1-seed team of Jeannelle Alexander, Emily Custer, Amelia O’Rourke-Owens, and Ernest Roberts; the #2-seed team of Helen Baddour, Stephanie Faris, Jason Howe, and Sonyé Randolph; and the #8-seed team of Molly Brewer, Christina Carter, Jonathan Savage, and Matt Wareham.
Based on bracket-style seeding NCCU was paired up against NCCU in the quarterfinal round, where Team Brewer edged past Team Alexander to advance to the semifinals, while Team Baddour knocked out a group from UNCCH Law to advance as well. Once in the semifinals, Team Baddour took down a squad from Duke Law while Team Brewer dispatched another team from UNCCH, setting up a second NCCU-vs-NCCU battle in the competition’s final round.
Before a packed courtroom with nearly 70 observers, prosecution Team Brewer faced off against defense Team Baddour in a highly polished championship match. In a close finish following extensive jury deliberations, Team Brewer was declared the winner with Matt Wareham winning the award for Best Witness and Jonathan Savage taking home the title of Best Advocate Overall.
With 32 teams competing, NCCU Law’s three teams made up just 9.4% of the participants — but 37.5% of the quarterfinalists, 50% of the semifinalists, and 100% of the finalists.
[Photo, from left to right: Bottom Row: Stephanie Faris, Molly Brewer, Helen Baddour, Jeannelle Alexander, Emily Custer; Middle Row: Molly Morgan, Jason Howe, Sonyé Randolph, Christina Carter, Amelia O’Rourke-Owens; Top Row: Ernest Roberts, Matt Wareham, Jonathan Savage]
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It was an awesome closing match, with just short of 70 people in the courtroom watching — including 3 of our Deans, a half-dozen professors, a few alumni and tons of Legal Eagles 
I also had “a dog in the fight” beyond just school pride, because the results this year also validated my whole philosophy on how to approach this competition.
My 1L year we were left to our own devices to develop our case, as we’re supposed to do, and miraculously ended up coming in 2nd after going 5-0 before losing in a rematch against Duke Law. Last year our 1Ls came in 2nd too (against another Duke Law team), but the 3Ls tried to micromanage the process so thoroughly — over the objections of myself and other members of that 2009-10 team — that only a few of the 2010-11 1L team members came back for TYLA/AAJ as 2Ls.
Once there was new leadership on the Trial Advocacy Board, we changed things around back to how they used to be. In October all interested 1Ls had to attend a workshop on opening statements and closing arguments before trying out a couple weeks later, then once we decided who made the three teams we left them alone with one condition: they had to practice against each other from 9am-3pm from January 2nd-11th, plus extra practice as needed. During the formal practices one team would be paired against another with a third in the jury box, rotating so every team faced everyone else at least twice apiece.
The variety of opposition and frequency of the practice helped ensure they were comfortable and confident when they got into Chapel Hill. I got to watch two rounds of the competition on Friday night, and then the closing arguments on Sunday. I was absolutely tickled pink at how great they did — still several pages of things done wrong,2 but a level of polish on par with some of the 2L/3L teams I’ve seen and easily better than I was as a 1L.
Having made history for the law school once this weekend, I’m hoping they’ll stick around and make history over the next couple years too 
 One day I want to see NCCU Law not just hitting up TYLA and AAJ, but making it back to some of the invitation-only trial advocacy competitions we used to win in the halcyon days the old folks talk about…3
That’s it for tonight, I’m going back to a brief. Have a great week!
- And on Friday night, all 3 teams racked up both Best Advocate and Best Witness awards in the same night! [↩]
- I’m a very nitpicky observer when it comes to trial team stuff [↩]
- We’ve got a few plaques from the Tournament of Champions competition tucked in a room in our Clinic. It’s a travesty they’re not displayed somewhere prominent for all the students to see. [↩]
You guys approach the competition in a VERY different way than we did. WAY BACK IN MY DAY, we picked our own teams based on who we liked to drink with, and as many teams that paid the fee could sign up and compete (in other words, no tryouts, no pressure, and certainly no management from 2Ls, 3Ls or professors). It was viewed as a practice thing for mock trial board tryouts and had no relationship to mock trial board. We didn’t run through anything at all against another team and were still memorizing statements the day before. You guys approach it from a whole different angle, but apparently it is paying off! I wonder if teams prepping hard and winning will change the approach to the competition for other schools.
Outstanding accomplishment!!! This accomplishment stands as testimony to the ability of the student, the support and knowledge of the professors, and the dedication of the 2L and 3L’s to mentor and lead those matriculating behind them. Job Well Done!
@Va.: If that’s how it was back in your day, it must have changed soon thereafter
The impetus for last year’s excessive (and utterly pointless IMO) micromanagement by our 3Ls was the inadvertent discovery during my year in the comp, from convos w/ the opposing team and subsequent Google searches, that both UNCCH Law and Duke Law had been holding evidence workshops and other training for 1Ls interested in the competition while Campbell Law had full-blown coaches (check out their press release re last year’s results at http://law.campbell.edu/news_article.cfm?id=42292&t=first-year-students-excel-at-kilpatrick-townsend-mock-trial-competition ).
The idea apparently was that, since it was done in October/November/early December, it wouldn’t qualify as the “thou shalt not have help” admonishment in the competition rules. That’s why Duke didn’t get DQ’d in our 2010 final round when they started citing objections and other FRE rules never included in the packet, b/c they “already knew” the material and couldn’t un-learn it — and the jurors from UNCCH Law had done the same training so it’d be hypocritical to penalize another school for the same thing.
In any event, I agree that this comp is/should be a trial run for 2L/3L year. However the school’s tackle it i the future, I’m glad leaving our ppl to their own devices this year produced a better result than either of the past two years
Welcome back! :-)
Sounds like it’s been a busy time!!