
0313 Pleading their case
Adams and Reese presents a $5,000 check to the Spain Park High School Law Academy.
Toward the end of 2012, the Spain Park High School Mock Trial Team had two big wins in two weeks. One was earning the title of Best Overall Team at the Alabama Mock Trial Competition. The other was defeating a hurricane.
Now, its members face another obstacle – rebuilding funds.
In order to represent Alabama at the National High School Mock Trial Championship in May, the SPHS team is attempting to raise enough to cover the trip’s $9,000 price tag. Normally, the team would have reserve funding to help students cover the cost of plane tickets and hotel rooms, but currently it’s coming up short.
The team, which represents only one portion of the Spain Park Law Academy, was competing in the Sixth Annual Empire City Mock Trial Invitational in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Oct. 29 when Hurricane Sandy struck the U.S. coast. As the 12 students presented that morning, their three teachers who had traveled north with them learned their flight had been cancelled.
The team spent more than two days in a hotel in Brooklyn. When they finally returned, feeling both homesick and weathered, students had less than two weeks before their next challenge – the state championships.
“The team we brought back (from New York) had a lot of experience but not a lot of time to prepare, and members who stayed in Alabama were prepared but didn’t have as much experience,” said SPHS teacher Craig Thompson, co-director for the Law Academy and Mock Trial Team. “So we split them into groups and let students be the teachers.”
Thompson called it “amazing” the way students learned each other’s strengths and built their State Competition team on that foundation. And when the team went to Montgomery, they proved their mettle.
One of SPHS’s six-member teams, consisting graduating seniors Oliver Barreau, Abby Brunner, Scout Johnson, Jordan McDonald, Micah Shoemaker, Bryant Williams, Read Mills and junior Jacob Kimes, was named Best Overall Team based on its sportsmanship, professionalism and competitive standing. They earned the chance to compete at the national competition in Indianapolis in May, but staying in New York through Sandy stripped the program of its reserve resources.
Thankfully, a caring community has brought them halfway back.
In January, the Law Firm of Adams and Reese presented the Law Academy with a $5,000 donation, which covers more than half of the team’s projected trip expenses. According to a release, Adams and Reese Partner Stephen Walsh from the firm’s Birmingham office encouraged the law firm to assist the mock trial team financially when he heard of the story last year.
“We saw the need to assist a local high school that won the state mock trial competition under some very difficult circumstances, and we were so impressed by these students and teachers that we wanted to help provide some of the financial support they needed to represent our state and our community at the national level,” Walsh said in the release.
Law Academy Co-Director Libby Day said the donation is the largest the Academy has received. Adams and Reese is also working with the mock trial team to set up a date to hold a practice mock trial session to further prepare them for the National Championship.
“This donation makes it possible,” Thompson said. “The number is $5,000, but you can’t put number on what this does for the program.”
Spain Park High School Law Academy is accepting further donations to help with expenses for the national competition. Donations can be sent to Spain Park Law Academy, 4700 Jaguar Drive, Hoover, AL 35242. Day can be reached at 439-1400 or lday@hoover.k12.al.us.