Mock trial members Josianne Alwardi and Emily Layton sat awaiting results and were informed they advanced to the championship round with only a short 30-minute break before competing.
After debuting at the Summit Cup in 2023 and finishing as finalists the following year, UT Law School’s Mock Trial team claimed victory in late September, starting its fall season strong with an 11-0 standing. The Cup’s selection is based on the champions of this past year’s prestigious competitions, resulting in a roster of top-ranked schools.
“It wasn’t just that we won,” said Jay Ellwanger, Texas Mock Trial coach. “We absolutely beat the best of the best.”
Final round competitor Alwardi said she knows a younger version of her would have been incredibly nervous, but her present-day self radiated confidence.
“It was a miracle of God,” Alwardi said. “There was something about this tournament that filled me with so much pride in myself and joy in what I was doing.”
Leading to the Cup, Alwardi said the team worked together, equally contributing to forming arguments for their assigned case. Instead of divvying up individual tasks, the coaches told students to work on all necessary parts of the case. Alwardi said writing the same material in their own voices resulted in a patchwork of ideas.
“That provided us with a lot of mastery and allowed us to kind of build off each other’s work in a beautiful way,” Alwardi said. “It wasn’t just my words on the page — it was the whole team’s voice.”
While Alwardi and Layton presented their argument to the jury, their team members sat restless. But Aleyna Young, law student and mock trial member, said that she knew everybody’s performance would be up to par with the “big dogs.”
“I am just sitting in the back row, wanting to say stuff so bad about how good they’re doing,” Young said. “But we have to sit there for three hours and just watch them kill it.”
Alwardi said her longtime friendship with Layton produced confidence in their ability to deliver a winning round against UCLA, which they did like a well-oiled machine.
“(UCLA’s team members) are some of the best in the country,” Alwardi said. “But because of how much fun I was having and how much I was putting out there, there was no way in hell that we were going to lose.”
Ellwanger said that this proved the most consequential win for the law school in the last two and a half decades. The UT Law School last won the Tournament of Champions in 2000, for which teams are selected based on a three-year performance record at prestigious competitions. Because of students’ dedication and time spent working on the Summit Cup’s assigned case, co-coach Emily Ogden said this win was no accident.
“It felt like a championship that was years in the making,” Ogden said. “Everything that the program had since I was in school had built up to that moment.”
