Competitive Advocacy Program<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cNamed for Professor Mario Conte, who led the law school\u2019s Competitive Advocacy Program for more than 15 years and served as executive director of Federal Defenders of San Diego from 1991 to 2005, the competition gives first-year students early training in the fundamentals of trial advocacy and the skillful presentation of facts,\u201d Carr added.<\/p>\n
Giving first-year law students a taste of what is to come<\/p>\n
For Carr, seeing first-year students get a taste of the legal world is exciting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe competition gives first-year students a challenging fact pattern and asks them to prepare and deliver an opening statement to a panel of judges,\u201d Carr said. \u201cThe exercise teaches a foundational advocacy skill: how to tell a persuasive story without making legal argument. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt also gets students on their feet, gives them meaningful early advocacy experience, and pushes them to try something new. That foundation serves them well if they later pursue one of our celebrated national trial teams or continue across CAP\u2019s other award-winning programs, including Jessup, ADR, and Appellate Advocacy.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Carr sees it, the benefit to trial attorneys for this type of competition is meaningful on several levels.<\/p>\n
The event offers experienced lawyers the opportunity to give back by sharing real-world experience and insight with the next generation of attorneys, while also strengthening professional relationships and connections within the legal community, Carr added. <\/p>\n
\u201cAt CWSL CAP, one of our greatest strengths is our alumni network of practicing lawyers in the San Diego community who are actively doing the real work required of practicing lawyers every day,\u201d Carr said. \u201cTheir involvement gives our students practical, experience based feedback that helps prepare them to be effective and practice ready lawyers from day one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carr\u2019s wife, Katie Nagler, is the other co-director. <\/p>\n
Students happy with the outcome<\/p>\n
For the winners, this experience has proven to be well worth it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was really excited to have won,\u201d said third-place winner Carlos Valdovinos. \u201cIt was my first time participating in something like this, so I went in with no expectations. Just making it to the finals felt like an accomplishment, and placing was an incredible and unexpected surprise.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Valdovinos, the award will help ease the financial burden of the summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI plan to take classes, and I will also be working with the San Diego Public Defender\u2019s Office, which is an amazing opportunity to contribute to important work I care deeply about,\u201d Valdovinos said. <\/p>\n
\u201cBecause the position is unpaid, this support will make a real difference in allowing me to focus on both my studies and my internship.\u201d<\/p>\n
Valdovinos, who is an immigrant, noted he wants a career in law to help others.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs an immigrant, I\u2019ve seen firsthand how difficult it can be for non-English-speaking communities to access competent legal representation\u2026 My goal is to use my experiences and skills to advocate for and support underserved communities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cynthia Sewah, who came in second, prepared for the competition by studying HHJ Trial Attorneys\u2019 podcast episodes on trial strategy and opening statements.<\/p>\n
\u201cI kept going back to them because I wanted to understand what makes an opening statement effective, not just in structure, but in impact,\u201d Sewah said. \u201cAttorney Elliott Jung said in one episode, \u2018you have to want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe,\u2019 and that became my mindset throughout the competition. <\/p>\n
\u201cEvery round felt like one breath closer to the moment I had prepared for, and winning felt like finally exhaling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sewah said this award will directly support her continued legal training and education. This summer, she will be participating in California\u2019s Practical Training of Law Students program with the Law Office of Parag L. Amin in Los Angeles. It is an opportunity to do substantive legal work under attorney supervision and to keep building practical skills outside the classroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is support at a moment when I am beginning to move from studying the law to practicing it,\u201d Sewah said. \u201cI am deeply grateful not only for the financial help, but for what it represents: an investment in my growth at an important stage of my legal education.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sewah added her ultimate goal is to become an attorney whose advocacy clients trust and whose judgment they can rely on.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to be the kind of lawyer who is not only persuasive in the courtroom, but also steady, clear, and deeply dependable outside of it,\u201d Sewah said. \u201cThe lawyers I most admire are those who pair strong advocacy with sound judgment and real presence for the people they represent. That is the kind of attorney I hope to become.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sebastian Avila said he was shocked to come in first place.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got teary-eyed when I saw all my friends applauding me,\u201d Aviles said. \u201cMy professor, Shawn Fields, was cheering me on, as he was in attendance too. Most importantly, I felt so much gratitude seeing my fellow classmates that I competed against (quite literally) giving me my flowers. California Western\u2019s community is so encouraging of one another; the selfless of my peers and their friendship has been one of the most rewarding aspects of law school journey thus far. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy tentative plan is to accomplish five years as a prosecutor and five years as a public defender, which I hope will provide me the foundation to eventually take the bench as a Superior Court Judge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Avila said he looks forward to someday serving Southern California as a public servant in criminal law.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only winning after all the work I put into the competition but also making my classmates proud meant a great deal to me,\u201d he added. \u201cThe amount of support that HHJ poured into this competition, both organizationally and monetarily, is absolutely beyond generous.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Overview: Legal competition Students honored for their presentations were Sebastian Avila (1st place), Cynthia Sewah (2nd place), and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[115214,61153,115215,721,113184,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-262302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-2026-conte-cup","tag-attorneys","tag-california-western-school-of-law","tag-law","tag-law-school","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Law-student-winners-Pic-1.jpeg\")
<\/a>Winners (L-R): Sebastian Avila, Cynthia Sewah, Carlos Valdovinos. (Photo courtesy of reminiscewithus.com)<\/p>\n