Clarke Wins Third Straight Mock Trial Title

For an unprecedented third time in a row, the student team from won top honors in Nassau County in the 2011 New York State Mock Trial competition.

The same coaching team has led Clarke to all their victories -- volunteer attorney-advisor M. Allan Hyman, partner at Certilman Balin, and Clarke teacher and former attorney Paul Henning. 

In the past two years, Hyman was joined by assistant attorney-advisor Keri Shannon, who was a member of the Clarke High School student team that won the New York State championship in 2003. This is the sixth time in the past nine years that Clarke has won the Christ Trophy.

This year, 117 attorneys and judges volunteered and 500 students from 44 high schools competed, at the annual Mock Trial Competition, the largest single-county tournament in the state.

The process began in December, with Nassau County Bar Association attorneys volunteering to advise and counsel student teams in trial techniques and court procedures as they prepared to prosecute, defend and act as witnesses in a fictional case provided by the state bar. In February, 22 concurrent trials were held in courtrooms at Supreme Court in Mineola, with each team representing either the prosecution or the defendant side of the criminal case.

The following week, the teams argued the other side of the case against different opponents and before different judges. Sitting judges, attorneys and other NCBA members who volunteer to preside over the trials evaluated the students’ performance, with the winning teams advancing up the tournament ladder until a winner was declared.

In April, the Nassau Champion Clarke High School competed in the Long Island Regional but lost to Suffolk Champion William Floyd High School, which will go on to compete in the state finals in Albany.