The A. Barry Cappello Trial Team at UCLA Law has made history, winning all three trial advocacy national championships for the third consecutive year.

It’s only February, but 2Ls Sydney Gaskins and Rochelle Mulondo have their summer career plans settled. Gaskins will return to Morrison Foerster, an international law firm, as a diversity scholar. She is a powerhouse on UCLA’s top-ranked trial advocacy team, having won her past three competitions. Mulondo, will join the seasoned lawyers at Sidley Austin in the tech transactions group as a diversity scholar. Specializing in technology law, she’s already interned at Apple.

For more than half a century, experiential learning has been a cornerstone of the UCLA Law education. Live-client clinics, for example, provide opportunities for students to get real-world legal experience and help underserved communities. Trial advocacy competitions—mock trials—present another way for law students to get experience, essential experience for litigators and trial lawyers and enormously valuable experience for any kind of lawyer.

UCLA School of Law’s A. Barry Cappello Trial Team is the national champion for a second straight year. The squad secured victory while repeating a previously unprecedented feat: winning the nation’s two biggest law school trial advocacy competitions in the same year.

When UCLA School of Law’s A. Barry Cappello Trial Team started to prepare for its latest competition this semester, they considered the difficult issue at the core of the case, having to do with Miranda rights, and immediately knew whom they should consult.

"The case turns on whether a criminal defendant's confession is admissible," says Justin Bernstein, who coaches the trial team. "The students had been doing the research, and our discussion had been fruitful. But it has been 17 years since I took Criminal Procedure. So, I thought: Why not get help from an expert?"