Katie Adam of Harrisburg wins mock trial competition

2013 Mar 6

Three Widener Law students from the school's Harrisburg, Pa. campus recently won the Academy of Trial Lawyers Mock Trial Competition, held in Pittsburgh.

The students, Langdon Ramsburg, Katie Adam and Mitchell Jones, took top honors Feb. 22 at the two-day event, located at the U.S. Courthouse in Pittsburgh. Ramsburg also won the competition award for best advocate. The Widener Law team beat the team from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in the opening round and the team from Georgetown University Law Center in the final.

"It feels great," team coach and Associate Clinical Professor J. Palmer Lockard said moments after the win. "I couldn't be happier for the students. If anyone deserves this, it's them."

The team argued the defense position in a civil trial involving an auto accident with a struck pedestrian. Ramsburg and Adam acted as the advocates and Jones served as a trial witness.

Competitors argued their cases to a jury of high school students, but it was a panel of five practicing attorneys watching and tallying points who determined the winner. Top-scoring plaintiff and defense teams from the first round advanced to the final.

"This is a unique competition," Lockard said. Known informally as "ATLAC," it is presented by the Academy of Trial Lawyers of Allegheny County, Pa. The organization partners with federal District Court judges from the Western District of Pennsylvania, who host the competition in their courtrooms, and with the Allegheny County Medical Society, which supplies physicians to serve as expert witnesses.

Adam, of Harrisburg, Pa., 17110 is in her third year of Widener's extended-division program. "Being an evening division student, this was especially validating because it is hard for individuals in our division to fully participate in a lot of extra-curricular activities," she said. "Our win gives recognition to the level of talent and skill present in our nontraditional law students."

Adam is the daughter of Timothy and Karen Adam of Leesport, Pa. She expects to graduate in May 2014 and is interested in criminal law.

Widener University is a metropolitan university that connects curricula to social issues through civic engagement. Widener provides an all-around comprehensive legal education program with special certificates available from its Health Law Institute, the Law & Government Institute, the Taishoff Advocacy, Technology and Public Service Institute, and the Institute of Delaware Corporate and Business Law and through its Environmental Law Center. Widener Law has two locations: the Wilmington, Del. campus, which opened in 1971, and the Harrisburg, Pa. campus, which opened in 1989. Visit law.widener.edu for more information.