February 4, 2013 – 4:00 pm

Last night, Americans marked the end of football season with the BeyonceBowl Superbowl and now TU is gearing up for competition season.

Last week, I competed in the Rocky Mountain Black Law Students Association Regional Mock Trial Competition in Dallas, TX. I must admit that I had no idea what to expect and as the trip got closer my nerves kicked in. I’d been confident up until the week of when I could not help but think there was something that I was forgetting—that I’d missed some crucial piece of evidence in the fact pattern.

Somehow it made me feel better to print 3 more copies of the 50+ page fact pattern, whole punch them, and put them in a binder complete with tabs. I guess somewhere in my mind the extra copies compensated for the nervousness. I packed my bags with contingencies for everything imaginable, highlighters, sticky notes, extra binders, whole puncher, magic markers, if you can buy it at Staples it was in my bag. Not to mention my other bag with all of my clothes and shoes!

When we got to Dallas, the competitors meeting was deathly quiet. You could tell each team was attempting to size up the other—some people had huge portfolios with demonstratives and exhibits, others just stared stoned-face into the front of the room.

The next morning rounds began and the same stoned-face people appeared, some made trivial banter while others paced the halls. We went into the first round and then the second that afternoon. We were told the results would not be available until the around 9. We went to dinner and anxiously awaited the email announcing who would move onto the second round of competition. At about 10:30 that night we received the email that we made it to the next day of competition! I’m proud to say that we did well again and made it to the final round of competition!

Ultimately, we earned 1st Runner Up in the competition; a distinction which qualifies us to move on to the National Black Law Students Mock Trial Competition March 6th-10th in Atlanta, GA!!

All of our hard work is paying off; we are ready to take nationals by storm!