University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

“Prosecutors” Christina Morrison and Anthony Sam of John Marshall Law School address the jury during the championship round of the Mock Trial Competition. Photo: DONALD DANNECKER

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• “You’ve got a dead dean, a femme fatale and a slew of suspects to go around.”

  Hon. Thomas P. Franczyk

  Co-director of Trial Advocacy

By AVERY SCHNEIDER

Published: November 18, 2009

Nearly 130 law students from 32 colleges and universities descended on the courtrooms in the Buffalo City Court building last weekend to test their legal mettle and wits at the UB Law School’s sixth annual Buffalo-Niagara National Mock Trial Competition.

Seventy-three mock trials were conducted before more than 150 local lawyers and judges who volunteered to serve as evaluators in the national competition, which ran through Monday. The law student advocates tried both sides of a mock murder case before the local judges and trial lawyers

“This is far and away the biggest competition in the country," says Hon. Thomas P. Franczyk, competition director and co-director of trial advocacy in the UB Law School. “The combined support from our law school, court system and bar association is phenomenal.”

This year’s case was drafted by Syracuse University Law School Professor Travis Lewin, who was Franczyk's trial team coach at Syracuse University Law School in the early 1980s. The case involved the murder of a law school dean, shot to death in his office. The defendant was a law professor who was the dean’s rival for the attentions of a popular law school co-ed.

“You’ve got a dead dean, a femme fatale and a slew of suspects to go around,” Franczyk says. “Professor Lewin assured me the fact pattern is entirely fictional.”

The event included a welcome breakfast in City Court on Nov. 13 and an awards banquet in Pettibone’s Grille in downtown Buffalo on Nov. 14. The championship round was held on Monday in the State Supreme Court ceremonial courtroom; State Supreme Court Justice and UB Law School Evidence Professor Kevin M. Dillon presided. The “prosecution team,” Team Q from John Marshall Law School in Chicago, defeated the “defense team,” Team U from St. John’s University School of Law in Queens, in the championship round.

Anthony Sam from the Marshall team was named the competition’s “best advocate” and received an award presented in honor of Matthew J. Schnirel, a 2008 UB Law School graduate and former trial team member who died in a plane crash in April while returning home to Amherst from Ohio.

In addition to UB, Marshall and St. John’s, the competition include students from Fordham University, Pace University, Syracuse University, Barry University, Florida Coastal School of Law, Nova Southeastern University, Chicago-Kent College of Law, University of Illinois, Duquesne University and Temple University.

Also, Thomas Jefferson University, Widener University, University of Georgia, Georgia State University, Northern Kentucky University, St. Mary’s University, South Texas College of Law, University of Connecticut, Pacific McGeorge School of Law, Cumberland University, Campbell University, Faulkner University, Creighton University, University of Wisconsin, University of Akron, Thomas M. Cooley Law School, Michigan State University, American University and Catholic University of America.