PRESS RELEASE Contact: Chetan Jhaveri
Email: chetan.jhaveri@duke.edu

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Duke University Mock Trial to Compete for National Championship

GREENVILLE, SC – FEBRUARY 4, 2008 – Placing 1st in the Kilpatrick Stockton Division of the South Atlantic Regional, the Duke University Mock Trial team earned the right to compete at the National Championship in April this past weekend. Winning seven ballots, losing none, and tying one, Duke recorded its strongest finish ever at a regional competition.

The team of eight students will compete at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota from April 4 to 6th in a four-round competition that will include 64 teams from across the nation. Duke Mock Trial has qualified for the National Tournament four out of the last five years.

The program in its entirety recorded 21 wins, 8 losses, and 3 ties along with 11 individual All-Region awards, totaling ¼ of all the individual awards handed out. Attorney awards were given to senior Mike Rosenberg, juniors Scott Eren and Lauren Gundrum, sophomores Sally Sullivan, and freshmen Britt Walden and Benjamin Dean. Witness awards were given to junior Amanda Norris, sophomores Bud Baker, Alex Gorin, Anjali Bhatia, and Victoria Bright.

This year, all four of Duke’s teams finished with winning records and qualified for national competition, but due to a two bid limit imposed by the American Mock Trial Association, two teams had to decline their bids. The second Duke team able to accept their bid for national competition finished with a record of six wins and two losses. Captained by senior Brian Pierce and junior Lauren Gundrum, the team will travel during spring break to compete at the National Tournament in Memphis, Tennessee at Rhodes College.

This year’s case is about a social worker who was attacked, and infected with HIV by the defendant. It is a criminal case in the sentencing phase. Duke Mock Trial is a program that fielded four teams for the year. 34 undergraduates participated in competition during the course of the year. Duke Mock Trial practices rigorously, meeting as a group six days per week for a total of about 18 hours per week.