Cornell's undergraduate mock trial team aspires to achieve a first, as well as win a trophy at the national finals of the America Mock Trial Association in Iowa, April 9-12.
Cornell has never taken the competition's top prize, but this year's team has made significant strides by winning both an Ivy League invitational at Yale in November and a regional competition at Utica College last month. In Utica, they competed against 16 collegiate teams, including squads from Dartmouth, Holy Cross, Boston College and Boston University.
Cornell's team consists of students from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, including seniors Shawn McDonald (the team's captain), Heather Mahar, Keith Becker, Maria Corsaro, Palak Shah, and Deborah Chow, junior Alissa Grad, and freshman Jonathan Scharf, from the College of Arts and Sciences. Joshua Field, a third year law student at Cornell, coaches the team.
The first hurdle the team had to cross for the national competition was fundraising. The Student Assembly Financial Committee's could only allocate $500 of the $4,000 needed for the trip, but ILR Dean Edward Lawler allotted the team an additional $1,000.
Grad was instrumental in obtaining a $2,500 gift from the funds' foundation of Littler Mendelson P.C., a Californian law firm where ILR alumnus Ron Holland '87 works. Michael O'Hara, an alumni relations liaison for ILR, also assisted in the fund-raising effort.
"We were lucky to have this much support this quickly," said McDonald. "Usually we have to raise money up until the last minute."
At the nationals, the team will debate both sides of a wrongful death suit on two different occasions, and they've already invested a significant amount of time and energy into their preparation.
"For the first time ever, I feel that Cornell has a legitimate chance of winning the national championship," Mahar said.
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