Office of External Communications

Houston, TX 77204-5017 Fax; 713/743-8199

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 30, 2004

Contact: Eric Gerber
713/743-8189 (office)
713/617-7130(pager)
egerber@uh.edu

HOUSTON, March 30, 2004 – The verdict’s in: the University of Houston Law Center’s mock trial team is guilty of winning this year’s national championship.

The team of Michelle Benavides, Eddie Berbarie and Julie Gray defeated a team from Stetson University’s College of Law in the finals of the 2004 National Trial Competition held in Austin March 27. The UH team beat Suffolk, Denver, Washington University, Syracuse and George Washington in earlier rounds.

This is the first time that a UHLC team has won the championship in what is generally considered the most prestigious of all trial competitions. The annual event attracts teams from more than 100 law schools across the country and involves more than 1,000 law students.

“This victory is the result of the hard work of many people who have played a positive role in this program during the last 14 years,” said the team’s coach, Jacqueline Houlette. “It will boost UHLC’s already fine reputation in mock trial nationally and will provide us even more opportunities to participate in tournaments across the country. That, in turn, will provide more UHLC students the opportunity to participate in this invaluable experience.”

The National Trial Competition, which was established in 1975, is sponsored by the American College of Trial Lawyers (ACTL) and the Texas Young Lawyers Association. The program is designed to expose law students to the nature of trial practice and to serve as a supplement to their education. In this year’s competition, the 26 regional winners were mock-trying a wrongful death case involving an automobile accident with allegations of drunk driving.

The team is sponsored and supported by the law firm of Beirne, Maynard & Parsons, LLP. Coach Houlette is a ’93 UHLC graduate who is now a partner at that firm. The UH team was also assisted by Jim Lawrence, UHLC’s director of student competitions, and Peter Hoffman, director of UHLC’s Blakely Advocacy Institute. A UHLC team advanced to the National Trial Competition championship rounds seven times during the past decade. In 1997, UHLC reached the finals but lost to Northwestern.

For more information about the UH Law Center, visit the Web site http://www.law.uh.edu/.

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For more information about UH visit the university’s ‘Newsroom’ at www.uh.edu/admin/media/newsroom.