Scoring big in prestigious tournaments and earning a No. 3 national ranking, UCLA School of Law’s trial advocacy team enjoyed unprecedented success in 2018-19.
Under the direction of veteran litigator and legal educator Justin Bernstein — who joined UCLA Law in 2018 to direct the trial advocacy program — the trial team won three tournaments in the academic year and made the playoffs in all eight of the competitions that it entered. Thanks to those accomplishments and more, the team finished the year in third place in the national Trial Competition Performance Rankings, while competing in fewer tournaments than most of its rivals. UCLA Law’s team was the highest-ranked on the West Coast and among all top-20 law schools.
Students on UCLA Law’s trial teams kicked off their season with a victory in the inaugural Martin Luther King, Jr., National Civil Rights Trial Competition at UC Davis School of Law in October 2018. There, the team of Kyle DeCamp ’19, Kian Khajooei ’20, Aidan Welsh ’19 and Corey Wilson ’20, with coaching from Bernstein and Sheppard Mullin associate J.D. Rees III ’14, took top prize. A UCLA Law team including Delaram Kamalpour ’19, Connor Trafton ’19, Mikayla Wasiri ’20 and Deeksha Kohli ’20 prevailed in the West Coast regional of the trial advocacy competition held by the American Bar Association’s labor and employment law section in November 2018. And at the Southern California regional tournament of the American Association for Justice’s Student Trial Advocacy Competition in March, the squad of DeCamp, Delaney Gold-Diamond ’21, Khajooei and Welsh emerged victorious.
Overall, UCLA Law’s trial team has reached the playoffs at 10 consecutive tournaments, the longest current streak in the country.
“Trial competitions really bring the threads of legal education together,” Bernstein says. “In class, students work on core skills, including writing, oral advocacy and understanding of precedent and core legal principles. Then, in competition, they must be able to solve problems, put their clients first and think on their feet.”
Bernstein is also seeking to make UCLA a hub for trial competitions. In June, the law school co-hosted the premier tournament for undergraduate mock trial competitors, Trial by Combat, which Bernstein created in 2017 at Drexel University Kline School of Law, where the competition was held. In 2020, the event finals will move across the country to UCLA Law, which will welcome competitors from Ivy League colleges, state universities and liberal arts schools.
Alumnus Cappello Boosts Rapid Ascent of Trial Advocacy Program
Separately, UCLA Law awarded its first Cappello Certificates in Trial Advocacy in 2018 to nine graduates who completed a curriculum focused on excellence in the courtroom. Every member of the graduating Class of 2019 who participated in the A. Barry Cappello Program in Trial Advocacy secured full-time employment in J.D.-required positions before graduation.
The rapid ascent of the trial advocacy program is due to the generosity of alumnus A. Barry Cappello ’65, who boosted the program with a new $500,000 gift in 2019. A renowned class action attorney who is the managing partner of Santa Barbara based Cappello and Noël, Cappello has earned over $1 billion in verdicts and settlements for his clients in cases ranging from environmental catastrophes to lending discrimination. His latest gift supports additional scholarships for students committed to trial advocacy, expenses for the A. Barry Cappello Trial Team at UCLA School of Law, and upgrades to UCLA Law’s A. Barry Cappello Courtroom.
$2.75 Million in Donations to UCLA Law by Cappello Brings State of the Art Coutroom and World Class Program
The gift raises Cappello’s total donations to UCLA Law to $2.75 million. It follows a 2017 gift that started the Cappello Program and a 2006 gift of $1.25 million that created the Cappello Courtroom, which has hosted proceedings of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and Ninth Circuit, and is home to the Cappello Courtroom Series: The Art of the Trial, a twice-annual lecture in which Cappello is joined by top trial and appellate attorneys.
“When I attended UCLA Law more than 50 years ago, the school did not have a trial advocacy curriculum,” says Cappello, who earned his undergraduate and law degrees at UCLA and is a member of the UCLA Law Board of Advisors. “Working with school leaders over the last several years, we have created a world-class program with a robust schedule of classes, a certificate and endowed scholarships for students committed to the art of courtroom advocacy, a leading trial team and a state-of-the-art courtroom. Giving back to UCLA Law and helping to create opportunities for the next generation of trial lawyers has been enormously satisfying for me.”
Reprinted from UCLA Law Magazine, Fall 2019
