UB Mock Trial Team Going to National Competition

Release Date: March 19, 1999 This content is archived.

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BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The University at Buffalo Law School's National Mock Trial Team has won the American Trial Lawyers Association (ATLA) regional trial competition held March 4-7 in Cleveland.

Sixteen teams from New York, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Indiana competed.

The winning team was composed of Adam Perri, Brandon Portis, Kirby Wright and Tony Cao, all third-year law students, who competed against other law students from Dickinson School of Law of The Pennsylvania State University, Thomas M. Cooley Law School, Case Western Reserve University and Syracuse University arguing issues involving a product liability case.

The team will compete in the ATLA national competition, to be held March 25-28 in New Orleans.

In addition, a UB team composed of third-year law students Michael Santa-Maria, Brendon Reagan and Loran Bommer, and second-year law student Betsy Snyder advanced to the competition semifinals. The team competed against Case Western Reserve University, Valparaiso University and Syracuse University.

Both teams were coached by Buffalo attorney Joseph J. Marusak of the Erie County District Attorney's Office. Marusak, a 1981 graduate of the UB Law School, was assisted by Christopher J. O'Brien of the Williamsville law firm of Ballow, Braisted, O'Brien & Rusin, P.C., and Joseph Deren, a Buffalo City Court attorney and a 1980 graduate of the law school.

In February, the UB mock trial team of Rebecca Monck, Nancy Saunders and Andrew Fanizzi, all third-year law students, advanced to the semifinals of the National Trial Competition.

A second team composed of Marc Brown and Rochelle Jones, both third-year students, and Anthony Pendergrass, a second-year student, reached the quarterfinal round of the competition. Coaches of that team were Buffalo City Court Judge Thomas P. Franczyk, Robert M. Murphy of the Buffalo firm Law Offices of Robert M. Murphy and a 1956 graduate of the law school, and James W. Grable of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, a 1966 UB law school graduate.

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