IIT Chicago-Kent to compete in the 2011 AAJ Student Trial Advocacy Competition Midwest regional tournament
Two teams from IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law will compete in the Midwest regional tournament of the American Association for Justice's (AAJ) Student Trial Advocacy Competition. Chicago-Kent will compete against teams from nine law schools from Illinois and Indiana March 3 to 6 in Indianapolis. The winning team in the Midwest tournament will join the first-place teams from 13 other regions at the national finals March 31 to April 3 in Las Vegas.
Third-year student Jessica Biaggi and second-year students Lindsay Gephardt, Jessica Velez and Erik Wilson will compete on one of Chicago-Kent's teams. The second Chicago-Kent team will comprise third-year students Patricia Berlin, Rachael Sinnen and Elise Waisbren, and second-year student Jack Bentley. (Berlin is a member of the Chicago-Kent team that placed second in the 2010 AAJ regional competition.)
The students will argue a personal injury case involving a head-on collision between an automobile and a tractor trailer. The first team is coached by Chicago-Kent alumni Anthony Lucafo '07, Katya Manak '10, Alex Molesky '07, and Cook County assistant State's Attorney Heather Kent. The second team is coached by Chicago-Kent alumni James Mc Kay '85, Charles Prochaska '10, Michael Schlechtweg '09 and Michelle Truesdale '04.
The American Association for Justice (formerly the Association of Trial Lawyers of America) is a broad-based, international coalition of attorneys, law professors, paralegals, and law students.
Chicago-Kent College of Law is the law school of Illinois Institute of Technology, a private, Ph.D.-granting institution with programs in engineering, psychology, architecture, business, design and law. Chicago-Kent's trial advocacy teams have won numerous individual student honors and regional and national competitions, including the 1988, 2007 and 2008 National Trial Competition championships. In 2008, Chicago-Kent became the first law school to win both the National Trial Competition and the National Moot Court Competition in the same year.
