Three competitors earned their share of $4,000 in scholarships Thursday at the third annual competition designed to give law students experience in the courtroom.
The annual Spohrer & Dodd Trial Advocacy Scholarship Competition was created in response to the shrinking number of legal filings that make it to trial.
Partners Robert Spohrer and Roger Dodd wanted to provide students at Florida Coastal School of Law with an opportunity to take their classroom knowledge and apply it in a courtroom setting.
Members from Coastal’s mock trial team competed for a spot in the Spohrer & Dodd event, and eight were chosen by Mock Trial Program Director Annette Ritter.
The competitors were Sharmila Bhagwandeen, Kelly Brannon, Rocco Carbone, Florence Chen, Darley Richard, Jennie Simons, Samantha Smart and Ashley Townsend.
“The skill level of the competitors year after year is remarkable. The trial skills professors at Coastal are equal to or better than the best in America. Both the competitors and their professors are hidden assets to the legal community in Jacksonville,” said Dodd.
Dodd acknowledged the students’ grasp of the case they were presented, which was modeled after a real case.
“This year’s competition was special. The high level of skills are a delight to witness, but even better was the fact that the case problem was modeled after Morris Dee’s real case. So topical. And Morris was a true gentleman to send a letter to encourage the competitors,” said Dodd.
Dees is the founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center and has won many notable civil rights cases that helped integrate government and public institutions.
The case for which the students had to develop closing arguments involved a wrongful death action seeking compensatory and punitive damages.
In the theoretical case, the mother of the deceased, who was a Mexican-American, sought damages from the man who beat her son to death and the organization “dedicated to the preservation of the American way of life by keeping the country pure and free of immigrants from south of the border.”
The plaintiff argued that it was the teaching of the organization that incited the attacker to kill her son and that organization was equally at fault.
The top three students earned scholarships and two of those three went to the plaintiff.
Samantha Smart, representing the plaintiff, was awarded first place and a $2,500 scholarship. Florence Chen, representing the defendant, was second and earned a $1,000 scholarship. Rocco Carbone III, representing the plaintiff, was third and earned a $500 scholarship.
The scholarships were donated by Spohrer & Dodd.
“Outstanding performances by all the competitors. They would give many of the local trial attorneys a run for their money,” said competition judge Fraz Ahmed, with the law firm of Kubicki Draper.
Fellow Coastal graduate Lindsay Tygart, who also judged the competition, agreed.
“It was really exciting to see all of these talented students. They were all so prepared and polished and showed a great understanding of the law and how to apply it to the facts. Each of them has a bright future in the courtroom,” said Tygart, of Shapiro, Fishman & Gache.
Also judging the competition were Assistant State Attorney Josh Alexander of the Seventh Circuit; Coastal graduate and past Coastal Mock Trial President Brooke Fuller; Paul Pinkham of Pinkham Mitigation & Investigation; and Coastal Assistant Professor of Professional Skills Lois Ragsdale.
This reporter was a judge as well.
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