A team of law students from Andover’s Mass. School of Law has performed so well in competition it will head to a national championship contest next week.
For the second year in a row, Massachusetts School of Law’s Trial Advocacy Team won the Thurgood Marshall Mock Trial Competition for the Northeast Region of the National Black Law Students Association. The competition was held Jan. 23 through 26.
The northeast region is comprised of the 33 law schools in New England, New York and northern New Jersey. The small Andover law school defeated Syracuse University Law School to capture the championship while St. John’s University Law School took third place.
MSL, on Federal Street, now advances to the national finals, to be held next week, March 6 to 10, in Atlanta, Ga. MSL’s Advocacy Team will attend BLSA’s national convention to compete for the national championship against the winners from the other five regions in the country. MSL’s Advocacy Team advances to the national finals for the fourth year in a row and has sent five teams to the national finals in the last three years, according to the school.
Team members are Cathrine Okoh, Simran Gill, Andrew Boulanger, Jason Herron, Sam Gould, Ali Shuaib, Rachel Hollingsworth, Jessica Edwards, Calvin Carrasco, Caryl Garcia, Hadler Charles, Poonam Choythani, Kellie Tiller, Anthony McDuffie, Patrick Brown, and Katisha Brown. Associate Dean Michael L. Coyne, Professor Daniel Harayda, Professor Darius Greene, and Essex County Assistant District Attorney Kimberly Gillespie coach MSL’s Advocacy team.
“Throughout the competition, MSL’s team displayed a high level of sophistication in a civil trial in Federal Court with complicated evidentiary and testimony issues. Students argued Motions in Limine before trying the complicated medical malpractice and civil rights case,” said a release. “MSL’s students demonstrated outstanding advocacy skills in all facets of the trials held over three days at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Cambridge.”
Law schools from Harvard, New York Law School, St. Johns, and Syracuse were among the schools MSL’s teams defeated en route to the northeast championship for the 33-school region.
