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.