Attorneys in Spicer Rudstrom’s Knoxville office: Isaac Westling, Alaina Tolbert, and Andrew Firkins were volunteers with the High School Mock Trial District Competition that occurred during the last weekend of February.
Knoxville Bar Association’s Barristers, the Young Lawyer’s Division of the Knoxville Bar, hosted the competition for 22 counties in East Tennessee. Westling, one of the Mock Trial Committee Co-Chairs, shared, “We hosted one hundred forty-nine competitors that comprised fourteen teams from eleven high schools representing Tennessee Districts 2, 3, and 4.” Andrew Firkins and Alaina Tolbert volunteered to be scoring judges and evaluated the competitors’ performances as advocates and witnesses during the mock personal injury trial.
All fourteen teams participated in four preliminary rounds. The Knoxville City County Building hosted the competitors, their coaches, friends, and families on February 24th and 25th. The students competed in the courtrooms that the Knox County Judiciary members generously made available for the event.
To provide insight into the impact of the volunteer participation in this event on the student competitors; in the words of one coach, “You should all be proud of the work you did to provide all of our students with an exciting and professional exposure to the practice of law. They were excited, tired, and overwhelmed at times, but they will never forget their time thundering about the courtroom.”