Campbell Law advocates make history at UNC Law’s Kilpatrick Townsend 1L Mock Trial Competition

RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA — A team of six first-year law students from Campbell Law School made history on Jan. 22 when they won first place at the University of North Carolina School of Law’s Kilpatrick Townsend 1L Mock Trial Competition. In addition to being the first Campbell Law team to win, the team of six women are the first in the law school’s history to make it to the championship round of the competition, which saw 38 teams compete. Of those teams, 22 were made up of Campbell Law students.  

 

The Broun National Trial Team, a student organization at UNC Law, coordinates the annual competition that brings teams from law schools across North Carolina together to practice trial advocacy skills. The competition offers a chance for first-year law students, who are not usually allowed to participate in outside advocacy competitions, to hone their courtroom skills.

 

The members of the winning team are Julia Smith ’25, Kendall Barbour ’25, Megan Pope ’25, Mollie Sells ’25, Olivia Reiff ’24 and Zannah Tyndall ’25. In addition to other Campbell Law teams, they faced teams from UNC Law and North Carolina Central University School of Law.

 

“We are so humbled and proud to be the FIRST Campbell Law team to EVER make it to the championship and the first EVER team from Campbell Law to win,” wrote Pope on Facebook.

 

On a recent Campbell Law Reporter podcast entitled, “May It Please the Court, and It Did,” Tyndall told editor Brian Hedrick, “We just didn’t have a weak link.”

 

Being an all-female team meant they not only connected in the courtroom but outside of it as well. “We could connect outside of the courtroom, we could go home and talk and have these conversations,” Tyndall continued. “We could just connect in a way that just made us connect even more in the courtroom.”

 

The championship round found Campbell Law’s advocates facing a tough team from N.C. Central Law. Tyndall added that the team’s foundation was built on trust and preparation, they relied on each other every round to make sure they succeeded. 

 

“All of the congratulations and the posts online, it meant the world to me,” Pope added. “I’m sure I speak for everybody when I say it means the world to the whole team.” 

 

Since its founding in 1976, Campbell Law has developed lawyers who possess moral conviction, social compassion and professional competence, and who view the law as a calling to serve others. Among its accolades, the school has been recognized by the American Bar Association (ABA) as having the nation’s top Professionalism Program and by the American Academy of Trial Lawyers for having the nation’s best Trial Advocacy Program. Campbell Law boasts more than 4,700 alumni, who make their home in nearly all 50 states and beyond. In 2024, Campbell Law will celebrate 45 years of graduating legal leaders and 15 years of being located in a state-of-the-art facility in the heart of North Carolina’s Capital City.