WEST PALM BEACH — “The team representing Circuit 15 at the 2012 Florida High School Mock Trial will be Palm Beach Lakes Community High School. Congratulations and best wishes for an excellent experience at state finals in March.”
With those words, Erin Crowe, program director of the Florida Law Related Education Association, Inc. in Tallahassee congratulated The Gerald A. Williams Law Academy Mock Trial Team at Palm Beach Lakes High School on its invitation to compete in the 2012 Florida State Mock Trial Competition, March 8-10 in Orlando.
To earn this honor the team won first place in the 15th Circuit Mock Trial Competition at the Palm Beach County Courthouse on Feb. 3.
In mock trial competitions, teams are given a hypothetical case to study and role-play before a courtroom judge. Students learn to act as both prosecuting and defense attorneys as well as expert witnesses.
By participating in Mock Trial, Palm Beach Lakes law students acquire important knowledge and skills: critical thinking, legal research, close reading, case study, persuasion and rhetoric. The ultimate goal is to obtain a complete understanding of the judicial process.
The team members are all juniors: Marus Allen, Le’Otis Boswell Johnson, Spechyl Buchannon, Ganeesh Genus, Kyler Gray, Traveon Stewart and Jacoya Wattley.
Palm Beach Lakes’ Mock Trial team coaches, who have demonstrated how hard work, dedication, perseverance and confidence are the key to optimum performance, are Steven Sorenson (a former attorney with the Public Defender’s Office and current Law Academy instructor) and Susan A. Winston (former Law Academy instructor and current family law attorney).
Junior Marcus Allen remarks that the team remained “confident but not over confident.” He went on to say that “we stuck to the script that was given, remained humble in our objections, and executed on what was taught.”
The entire Palm Beach Lakes Rams Family congratulated the Mock Trial team members, who are eager to compete on the state level in March.
For more information contact Tera Hands, Choice Programs coordinator, 561-640-5014 or tera.hands@palmbeachschools.org
Photo: COURTESY OF PALM BEACH COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT
FUTURE ATTORNEYS: From left, Ganeesh Genus, Le’Otis Boswell Johnson and Kyler Gray, of the Palm Beach Lakes High School Mock Trial Team, confer in a Palm Beach County Courthouse courtroom.
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