The Moot Court Board and Trial Team returned from numerous competitions with trophies and awards by the armload. 

Trial Team members Elia Robertson and Zachary Wynkoop were named regional champions in the Texas Young Lawyers Association Mock Trial Competition on Feb. 8.

Wynkoop took top honors in the region, winning the National Trial Competition Regional Champion – Edward D. Ohlbaum Award for Best Advocate in the Final Round.

The 3Ls advanced to the national competition, which will be held in Houston March 11-14.

"Zach and Elia were simply outstanding,” said Professor Gwen Roseman Stern, who directs the Trial Advocacy Program.  “They’ve impressed me tremendously, so I wasn’t surprised that they won over the judges.”

Stern noted that 2Ls Tyler Harttraft and Hannah Molitoris also performed extremely well, defeating a team from a prestigious law school in their second round.

The students were coached by Class of 2012 alumni Michael Benz, of the Defender Association of Philadelphia and Sam Haaz of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office as well as Stern.

In the International Trademark Association’s Saul Lefkowitz Moot Court Competition that ended Feb. 8, Moot Court Board members Michael Delaney and George Patsalosavvis advanced to the regional semi-finals in Brooklyn, New York.  The 3Ls were coached by Professor Amy Landers, who directs the Intellectual Property Law Program. 

Members of the law school’s Moot Court Board advanced to the semi-finals  and took one of the top brief awards in the Regional Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition on Feb. 15.

3Ls Stacey Snyder and Lauren Runza and 2Ls Kate Mahoney, Andrew Bull and Kelsey Knish surpassed 18 other teams, including the University of North Carolina, Lewis & Clark and the University of Baltimore.  In the quarter-final round, they defeated Penn State and went on to share third place with Georgetown University Law Center.

“In each round, the team faced increasingly challenging panels of judges who were clearly experts in the subjects of the competition," said Diane Penneys Edelman, the co-chair of the Philadelphia Bar Association International Law Committee, who coached the students. "Under pressure, the team worked beautifully together and set a great example of how thorough preparation yields success."

Jessup is the world's largest moot court competition, in which participants from more than 500 law schools in 80 countries in take part. 

3Ls Anthony DiJiacomo and Stephany Gordon advanced to the semi-finals in the American Bar Association Appellate Advocacy Regional Competition in Brooklyn, NY on Feb. 19-21. 2L Jasmine Smith contributed to the team’s brief. 

The team, which defeated rivals from Cornell University and Texas A&M University, was coached by David Chanin, of counsel at Kleinbard LLC.

3L Ian Mandell won two of the three of the top awards at the National Security Law Moot Court Competition at George Washington University on Feb. 20-22.

Mandell was named Best Oral Advocate and Best Overall Advocate, defeating rivals from New York University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Fordham University, George Mason University, the University of Virginia and William and Mary.  Overall, Mandell and teammate Michael Eaverly took fifth place in the competition.

Mandell and Eaverly were coached by Vineet Gauri and Nancy Winter, who are both assistant U.S. attorneys.  

The only law school team frozen out in the February competitions were two Moot Court Board members who were set to take part in the National First Amendment Moot Court Competition at Vanderbilt University, which was cancelled due to an ice storm.