ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 12, 1996 TAG: 9602120036
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
Students from eight law schools were in Roanoke Saturday to argue the case of a fictional philanderer who was holding his lover's red bikini when her husband burst into the room.
The elite of the student legal community, among them students from Georgetown University and Washington and Lee, tried a tawdry tale of skin and booze before actual judges at the Roanoke courthouse. Volunteers acted as witnesses, and lawyers sat in the jury box and issued grades.
This was the regional playoff of a national mock-trial contest sponsored by the Texas Young Lawyers Association. Students compete because they want the experience; the winners walk off with a valuable addition to their resumes.
To hear Circuit Judge Clifford R. Weckstein tell it, law firms should be paying attention to contest results when they hire staff.
"These young people are doing a better job than many seasoned lawyers I have seen," he said.
The students got to test their courtroom voices before some potentially tough critics. Virginia Supreme Court Justice Lawrence L. Koontz Jr. heard one mock trial and helped select the winning teams, from the University of Richmond and Georgetown.
The hypothetical case presented to the students turned in many ways on the question, "Honey, can you get me a cold beer?''
First, a summation:
A lawyer tracked down his wife at a romantic Florida vacation spot with a partner in his law firm. The partner was in a towel holding her bikini; she was nude and calling for another beer. All three worked at the firm.
The husband wrote a stinging accusation of his partner to the management of the law firm and asked that he be fired. The partner sued the husband for defamation, claiming it was all a mistake and he was not involved with the man's wife.
"We had a judge tell us no jury in Virginia would believe that," said Jill Kirila of Georgetown. But the point here was not to win a verdict, but rather to put up a good fight, whichever side they had to represent.
On the witness stand was the wife - whose character was played by Britt Lorish, a paralegal at the Roanoke law firm of Gentry Locke Rakes & Moore.
"You were naked the few moments after you asked for the beer and your husband walked in?'' asked University of Richmond student Jennifer Fury.
"Yes," Lorish said. And yes, she said, her husband's business partner had her bikini.
Then it was the husband's turn.
"The only thing I could do was cause a scene," testified Roger Spradlin, a student at Virginia Western Community College who played the husband.
In closing arguments, the husband's side called the evidence of infidelity as clear as footprints in the snow leading to a door.
But the partner had an explanation. He said he and the man's wife had attended a convention in a nearby city, decided to relax for a day in St. Petersburg, Fla., and found only one room available.
The red swimsuit? She had handed it out a cracked bathroom door and he was taking it outside to dry.
And the towel?
He had showered outside.
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: DON PETERSEN/Staff. Barry Meek, a law student at theby CNBUniversity of Richmond,
defends the irate husband. color.