Welcome!

The Trial Lawyers Section of the New York State Bar Association is pleased to welcome Section members and visitors. Among the resources available at this site is a comprehensive listing of links relevant to the Section, information concerning the National Trial Competition Region 2 for law students that is sponsored by the Trial Lawyers Section, information concerning scholarships made available by the TLS to new attorneys who demonstrate a commitment to diversity, and upcoming networking and CLE events. Members of the Section are invited to share ideas and seek opinions in the Trial Lawyers Section online community.

We encourage you to get more involved with the section. There is an opportunity to assist in the writing of articles, in the planning and participation of networking and programming events, and assisting the Executive Committee in accomplishing the Trial Lawyers Section mission to bring together for furtherance of their mutual interests such members of the New York State Bar Association as are interested in the problems of the trial lawyer and other branches of the law relating to trial practice and procedure. To get involved contact any member of the Executive Committee or Stephanie Bugos (staff liaison) at sbugos@nysba.org.

The Executive Committee of the Trial Lawyers is comprised of 4 Officers, Section Delegates to the NYSBA House of Delegates, former section chairs, and two representatives from each Judicial District in the State.

The Trial Lawyers Section engages in many activities, including a CLE program put together with the Torts, Insurance and Compensation Law section during the NYSBA Annual Meeting. The Section also has an annual summer meeting with additional CLE provided and an opportunity to enjoy a fun location and networking opportunities. View photos from our past events here.

To maintain our activities in the years ahead, we need you to become more involved in the Trial Lawyers  Section, to go beyond attending a few of our conferences. Please join our section.

The Trial Lawyers Section hosts events to provide new attorneys and diverse attorneys an opportunity to hear from a panel of judges and experienced attorneys regarding bar association membership and provide support to all trial attorneys and law students through involvement in the New York State Bar Association and the promotion of high professional standards and courtesy. The section won the Section Diversity Champion Awards in the 2012 and the 2013 NYSBA Diversity Challenges for these efforts. For more information or to get involved, consider joining our Section's Diversity Committee. 

Please contact Stephanie Bugos if you are interested or complete and mail in the Trial Lawyers Section Membership Brochure to become a member of the section and to select any committee/s you would like to join.

Meet the Section Chair

Executive Committee Roster

Trial Lawyers Section Bylaws

For the past 40 years, the Trial Lawyers Section of the New York State Bar Association has had the privilege of hosting the New York Regional Round of the National Trial Competition, the country’s oldest and most prestigious mock trial competition for law students.  The mission of the NTC is to “encourage and strengthen students' advocacy skills through quality competition and valuable interaction with members of the bench and bar.  The program is designed to expose law students to the nature of trial practice and to serve as a supplement to their education.”

The 2017 New York Regional Round of the national Trial Competition was held on the weekend of February 10-12.  This is the 42^nd consecutive year that the Trial Lawyers Section of the New York State Bar Association has served as the host for this Mock Trial Competition for law students.

This year, eleven law schools from New York State entered the competition, sending 20 teams made up of three law students each.  The schools that competed this year were Brooklyn Law School, Buffalo Law, Cardozo Law School, Cornell Law, Fordham Law, Hofstra Law, NYU Law, New York Law School, Pace Law School, St. Johns Law and Syracuse Law.

Fordham Law School served as the host school.  Major thanks go to Adam Shlahet, Director of Student Advocacy at Fordham Law and Prof. James Kieran, both of whom devoted a considerable amount of time to helping organize and run the competition.

The competition this year was held at the United States District Court, Southern District Courthouse at 500 Pearl Street.  This was a wonderful venue for the students to compete in and we wish to thank the Chief Judge of the Southern District, the Hon.  Colleen McMahon for allowing us to hold the competition at the Southern District Courthouse.

In this mock trial competition, the law students are required to try an entire case from start to finish, including Opening Statements, Direct and Cross-Examination of witnesses, Closing Statements and motions at various points of the trial.   A presiding judge oversees the trial and lawyer/evaluators score the students based on their performance in presenting their cases. 

After three rounds of competition, eight teams advanced to the Semi-Finals held on Sunday morning:  Teams A and B from Brooklyn, Team E from Cardozo, Teams I and J from Fordham, Team N from NYU, Team Q from St. Johns, Team S from Syracuse.

Teams A and B from Brooklyn advanced to the Final Round along with teams from St. Johns and Syracuse..  In the Finals, Brooklyn Team B defeated Syracuse Law and St. Johns Law defeated Brooklyn Team A.

St Johns Law and Brooklyn Law were crowned Co-Champions of the New York Regional Competition and both teams will go on to represent New York in the National NTC Finals to be held in Texas in March 2017.

The Trial Lawyers Section recognized several individual students with awards in each of the various disciplines of the trial:

Best Opening Statement:  Arielle Cummings, St Johns Law

Best Direct Examination:  Loreen Bousmail, NYU Law

Best Cross-Examination:  Loreen Bousmail, NYU Law

Best Closing Statement:  Loreen Bousmail, NYU Law

Best Overall Advocate, Preliminary Rounds:  Sean Brucker, Hofstra Law

Anthony DeMarco Jr., Best Overall Advocate Award:  Christopher Clark, Syracuse Law

The Prof. Travis Lewin Best Coaches Award:  Brooklyn Law School

Congratulations to all who competed this year and best of luck to St Johns and Brooklyn at the National Finals.

Welcome to our online professional Community for Trial Lawyers Section members. We invite you to participate. Members of our Section run the gamut from experienced trial attorneys to law students and newly-admitted attorneys who are just finding their way in trial practice. We want all of you to share your experiences and your knowledge while also being free to ask questions of others in the Section and participating in the intellectual discourse we hope to generate. 

The Community is private for Trial Lawyer Section members only. (Not a member? Dues are only $40/year with NYSBA membership: Join here.) Commercial search engines are excluded and only Trial Lawyers members can search the site or identify other members. 

Learn about NYSBA's private online professional Communities (video)

> ENTER THE TRIAL LAWYERS SECTION COMMUNITY 

> ENTER THE TRIAL LAWYERS SECTION EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE COMMUNITY