New College mock trial team notches wins

For the second year in a row, New College students proved their pre-law prowess on the national stage, competing in the American Mock Trial Association (AMTA) Regional Tournament.

During the virtual event, the New College team recorded victories against students at Rutgers University, the University of Portland and the University of Nevada, Reno. Although the team narrowly missed moving on to the opening round of the championship series, third-year mathematics student Evan Hunter was named to the all-region attorney team (a first for New College).

“This was truly a team effort, with outstanding performances by every New College student participating,” said David Fugett, New College’s general counsel and the team’s coach. “They competed hard all weekend and continued to improve in every round.”

This year’s team included Hunter; Alyssa Boynton, co-captain; Erin DuMond, co-captain (who will be attending Florida State University College of Law in the fall); Izaya Miles; Melody Scott; Isabel Nieves; Natalie Kornblum; and Telle Fugett.

“Our students who played the part of witnesses were consistently excellent throughout the competition. Against Rutgers, one of the judges ranked our witnesses numbers one, two and three. That kind of a clean sweep in the rankings is extremely rare and reflects the depth of talent on this team,” Fugett said. “Also, Rutgers has almost 70,000 students. Getting a win in the first round against them was a nice start and showed the team that, regardless of the size of the school, we can compete—and win—against anyone.”

For Hunter, it was certainly a confidence booster.

“It was a really strange experience because I went in with a low confidence level. However, about halfway through the competition, I realized that we were actually quite good and that everyone on the team might be in a position to take home an award,” Hunter said. “It was super exciting to be named an all-region attorney, but we had plenty of other people on the team who performed spectacularly and deserve as much—if not more—credit than I do. Our performance at regionals this year bodes well for the future.”

Fugett agrees.

“Evan’s place on the all-region attorney team is well-deserved. He is extremely talented, works hard and thrives on this type of competition,” Fugett said. “What’s scary is that he still has a lot of room for improvement. Some of Evan’s toughest competition came from his fellow Novos. He was outranked several times by members of his own team, which is a great sign for the future of mock trial at New College.”

Last year was the first time the New College team competed in the AMTA event, which was held at the University of Central Florida. Novo Collegians went up against the top teams from the University of Miami, Florida International University and Flagler College, as well as a team from England’s De Montfort University (New College outscored law students at the latter by 15 points).

“It’s exciting to see the improvement in this team over last year,” Fugett said. “They are gaining confidence and starting to realize they can successfully compete against any college or university in the country.”

Another milestone for Novos came at the end of October 2020, when New College sent students to compete in the Mid-South Regional of the 2020-2021 American Moot Court Association (AMCA) national championship tournament.

Six students (Kornblum, Nieves, Rhys Shanahan, Natalie Spivey, Rasheed “Zane” DiVita and KarYan “Max” OoHlaing) practiced their legal skills by arguing imaginary cases. Some of their final scores ranked them ahead of students from Yale University, Vanderbilt University, the University of Texas, Texas A&M University and Liberty University.

“The future for this team is bright. We need to continue to recruit new and current students for mock trial, but it’s nice to know we have such a strong group returning next year,” Fugett said. “The entire New College community can be proud of these students who spent countless hours preparing to successfully compete against the very best in the country.”

Interested in mock trial or moot court? Contact Fugett at 941-487-4877 or [email protected].

Abby Weingarten is the senior editor in the Office of Communications & Marketing.