Bradon Toomey

Bradon Toomey SLU Objection! Captain Class of 2012 315-355-1067 [email protected] To the Thelomathesian Society,

The SLU Mock Trial Team (A club listed as SLU Objection!) is a highly dedicated group of students. We currently have 7 Members and have already begun practices. Our faculty adviser is Darby Morrisroe and our attorney coach is Mary Rain, who is the county public defender. We have been sponsored in part by the government department to cover any fees associated with our actual registration for competition, but we have not received funding for travel associated with preparatory and competitive trips.

For those of you who are not familiar with mock trial, it is very similar to a Debate or Model UN team, except that it is in a courtroom setting. We are given a “case” that all mock trial teams in the nation work on, and then we compete in regional competition in February. Our weekly meeting is Sundays in Hepburn 105 from 2-5 PM and we are partially sponsored by the government department as I mentioned previously. We also work closely with the local Bar and we will have a number of workshops with Canton attorneys.

Most teams start to prepare their mock trial teams in April of last semester. We held our first practice three weeks ago and have had to put in an incredible amount of time per member to start to ready ourselves. We work outside of meetings roughly 7 hours per person, per week. It is my hope to have a “JV squad” next year for students who cannot commit the amount of time required to our current format of preparation and to improve our numbers.

Funding to attend this invitational would help us greatly in achieving this goal as we can really see how competitions are run and survey our opposition for February. I would be delighted to move on to nationals next semester as this would be a great source of pride for our school and community.

To conclude, Mock Trial is very beneficial to the pre-law program at SLU, which is honestly very weak. I believe that it is a part of strengthening our pre-law program and could be yet another reason for a student to decide to attend our campus, as well as to provide an unparalleled experience for our current students to enjoy. I hope that you will assist in making this venture a success! Costs of Mock Trial Trip to Colgate College to observe an invitational competition

Hotel Room Costs $352 Food Costs $400 (Reduced) Gas $40 (Reduced) Total Cost $792 .

The first major expenditure is our room reservations. We are in need of four rooms for the night and the cost of a hotel in the Utica area is $79 a night plus fees which totals $352 (Microtel Inn, Utica, NY). This rate is likely to rise if we are unable to book our room soon. This is the cheapest hotel that has free Wi-Fi, which is an essential for the travelling college student. Cheaper hotels charge $15-$20 per person for Wi-Fi, which more than makes up for what we would save in room costs booking rooms at a cheaper hotel.

Our food total for the weekend comes to $400. I have included our advisers in the total for food. This is not the full amount that is normally given for food expenditures for two days, but I have tried to cut costs in as many ways as possible. Our breakfast the morning of the 8th will be covered by the hotel purchase.

We have no expenditures related to actually attending the invitational as we are strictly observing the competition. Also, we will be covering most our own mileage for the trip, and do not full reimbursement of funding for the drive. We are asking for $40 to assist with gas expenditures. Again, we have tried to make this as affordable of a trip as possible.