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Boston's Winsor School ranks 11th at 2010 national Mock Trial Championship

Issue June 2010

The Winsor School of Boston, the all-girls high school that won the 25th Annual MBA Mock Trial championship, placed 11th at the 27th Annual National High School Mock Trial Championship held May 6-9 in Philadelphia.

Senior Maggie Yellen, one of the team's co-captains, received one of 20 outstanding performance awards.

The Winsor School team participated in four trials at the competition, the largest national contest ever, with 44 teams from the continental United States, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and South Korea.

The committee that wrote the case drew upon the city's history as a backdrop for the case, which highlighted the contemporary issue of flash mobs, which have become an issue in places like Philadelphia.

In the 25 years that the Massachusetts Bar Association's state champion has competed in the national competition, Team Massachusetts has been ranked in the top 15 only seven times. This year's Winsor team - the first all-girl's team to win the state championship and the first team from the school to win the finals in six years of competing - was coached by attorney Joshua McGuire and District Court Judge David Weingarten.

On the silver anniversary of the state competition, the Winsor School advanced to the national competition after besting Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School of South Hadley on March 26 in the Great Hall in Boston's Faneuil Hall.

The Mock Trial Program is administered by the MBA, and made possible by the international law firm of Brown Rudnick through its Center for the Public Interest in Boston, which has contributed $25,000 to the program every year since 1998. The Massachusetts Bar Foundation also donated $2,500 to the school to help cover travel costs.