Jayna Robotham ’26, Emily Rockwell ’26, and Maxwell Pardoe ‘26 took home the Regional Moot Court Championship held at Boston University by defeating other New England law schools in Region 1. Pardoe also won Best Oralist in the final round, which was presided over by two federal district court judges, a sitting judge on the Massachusetts Appeals Court, and a retired judge of that court.
Over two days and four arguments in November, they defeated Roger Williams and Vermont Law Schools in the preliminaries, the reigning national Moot Court champion Boston University Law in the semifinals, and finally bested Harvard Law in the finals.
The Moot Court Team is coached by adjunct professor Thomas Carey ’65, with assistance from Rosemary Daly, the director of Advocacy Programs. The team now moves on to the national championships, to be held January 28-30, 2026 in New York City, where they will face off against other regional winners from across the nation. Last year, Boston University became the first Region 1 team to win the national championship since BC Law did in 1973, so this year’s BC team will be looking to make it two in a row for Region 1.
BC Law Mock Trial teams also performed exceedingly well in competitions this fall. Following the school’s internal Mock Trial competition finals in October, BC Law sent multiple teams to several external competitions. In effusive emails he wrote to the school community, clinical professor, director of the BC Defenders program, and co-coach Steve Van Dyke reported the triumphs of teams at both the inaugural Cambridge Clash Tournament at Harvard Law from November 7-9 and at the Quinnipiac Law/ABA Criminal Justice Mock Trial Competition at Quinnipiac on November 16.
At the Cambridge Clash, the BC Law team of Hannah Phillips ’27, Melanie Sztulman ’26, and Sarah Kaplan ’26 switched between plaintiff and defendant roles in a mock civil case over the course of three days and multiple rounds. The case, Yasinovsky v. Light Cloud, Inc., concerned an AI company and a suspected whistle-blower plaintiff whom the company fired on the basis of video evidence of his supposed break-in into the company’s office.
The result of the competition, which involved seven law school teams from the New England area and beyond, was a unanimous decision declaring the BC Law team the winner. On top of the team win, Phillips, advocating on both sides of the case in her first-ever competition representing BC Law, took home the overall competition’s Best Advocate Award. And Kaplan, after completing the team’s fifth trial in the span of just three days, took home the award for Best Advocate in the Final Round. Phillips lauded the support of her teammates and coaches for her performance. “I am so grateful to BC Law for their support of the oral advocacy programs, and I cannot wait to see what my teammates and I will achieve together in the spring,” she said.
At the Quinnipiac competition, BC Law fielded a team of Leia Washington ’27, Jenna Blocher ’27, Bennett Demsky ’27, and Sage Wenninghoff ’27 after somewhat unexpectedly getting added to the tournament from a waitlist. The mock trial involved a criminal case, State of Quinnipiac v. Jamie Ruseki, in which there was an assault and a robbery at a bar. The issue at stake was whether the person who helped tie up the bar owner and drove the getaway car was a willing accomplice or acting out of duress due to threats to his life by the other accused perpetrator of the crime.
The BC Law team played a full suite of roles in the five cases over three days: prosecutor, defending counsel, defendant, witness, detective, and victim, as they took on a series of formidable teams from Harvard, Drexel (twice), Quinnipiac, and Georgetown. Judge Peter McShane, who presided over the round along with other leaders in the field of criminal law in Connecticut who helped score the competition, heaped praise upon students from both teams.
When the judges’ decision was announced, the BC Law team of Blocher, Demsky, Washington, and Wenninghoff, which began the tournament as the lowest seed in the record field of 16 law schools from across the country, emerged as the champion. Demsky was also named Best Overall Advocate.
The victories were sweet for Van Dyke, who himself graduated from BC Law in 2008 and was a member of the Mock Trial team. The wins punctuated the steady progress the Mock Trial program has made at BC over the last few years under his direction.
This year’s team is made up of a record nine students, up from an average of four to six in recent years. Van Dyke explained that while the current team is still smaller than the teams of many large programs, the added participation is allowing the team to enter more competitions, and to achieve spectacular results. But he was quick to deflect credit back to the talented students who are having so much success in the competitions.
“This is a brave, talented, and resilient group of law students. They possess tremendous trial skills, which have been built through their hard work and practice,” said Van Dyke alongside team co-coach Julie Buszuwski, an adjunct professor at the Law School. “But what is most impressive is the care that they show for each other and the abiding spirit of collegiality they extend to all the people with whom they interact on behalf of BC Law. They are outstanding representatives of our school’s core principles and are sure to cultivate a strong reputation for themselves as they join the legal community.”
The Mock Trial and Moot Court teams fall under the umbrella of the William E. and Carol G. Simon Oral Advocacy Program at BC Law. The Oral Advocacy Program allows students to craft compelling presentations, develop intellectual agility, and respond effectively to questions under pressure, while gaining confidence in a courtroom setting.
“Our advocacy programs are off to an impressive start this year. We have a very strong bench of students who are not only smart and good on their feet, but are also true team players and genuinely great people,” said Daly. “ None of the program’s accomplishments would have been possible without the stellar work of the Board of Student Advisors, and the incredible dedication of our alumni who so generously give both their time to judge our various competitions and financial contributions to support these endeavors. And it goes without saying, some pretty great coaches. It really takes a team. That’s what I love about BC Law.”
Photography by Andres Leiva ’26
More: Read the Impact blog for a coach’s firsthand account of the ‘Cambridge Clash’ experience.
