![\"Queens](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/da-katz-annual-mock-trial-competition01.jpg\")
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Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz hosted the 11th annual mock trial competition in Kew Gardens on March 14 and 15. <\/p>\n
Photo courtesy of Queens DA\u2019s office<\/p>\n
The Queens District Attorney\u2019s Office hosted its 11th annual Mock Trial Competition<\/a> this month bringing future lawyers from 18 nationally ranked law schools to Kew Gardens<\/a>. <\/p>\n Teams competed before senior prosecutors and members of the defense bar with New York Supreme and Criminal Court judges presiding on the bench. Stetson University College of Law, a relatively small school with just over 830 students in Gulfport, Florida, captured first place honors after traveling more than 1,020 miles to compete in Queens Criminal Court.<\/p>\n During the tournament, each team of second-year law students studied a fact pattern and prepared a mock trial for the competition on March 13. The competition consisted of two preliminary rounds, a blind quarterfinal, semifinals and a final round. Current and retired judges from Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Westchester volunteered to preside, along with prosecutors and defense attorneys who acted as evaluators and bailiffs. During the weekend, participants received feedback after each round and a culminating score from evaluators.<\/p>\n \u201cOur annual mock trial competition is a chance for law school students from across the country to demonstrate their skills and learn from seasoned prosecutors and defense attorneys,\u201d Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said.<\/p>\n The champion team was made up of Savannah DeLo, Aliza Khandelwal, Brandon Lizer and Jacob Rykiel and they bested teams from St. John\u2019s University School of Law, Fordham University School of Law, New York University Law School, Seton Hall University Law School, Maurice A, Dean School of Law at Hofstra University and Brooklyn Law School among others.<\/p>\n The second-place winners were participants from the Elizabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University.\n<\/p>\n \u201cThis year\u2019s participants showed that they have the dedication and knowledge to go on to promising careers in the legal system,\u201d Katz said. \u201cThank you to the prosecutors and staff from my office as well as the defense bar for their work in making this weekend a successful learning experience.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz hosted the 11th annual mock trial competition in Kew Gardens on March 14…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[70660,70661,70662,70663,70664,9,24,70665,63,122,5193,11229,124,123,70666,70667,70668],"class_list":["post-173335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-dean-school-of-law","tag-elizabeth-haub-school-of-law","tag-fordham-university-school-of-law","tag-maurice-a","tag-mock-trial-competition","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-university-law-school","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-district-attorney-melinda-katz","tag-queens-district-attorneys-office","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-seton-hall-university-law-school","tag-st-johns-university-school-of-law","tag-stetson-university-college-of-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/da-katz-annual-mock-trial-competition02.jpg\")
The Stetson University College of Law team of (left to right): Brandon Linzer, Jacob Rykiel, Aliza Khandelewal and Savannah DeLo defeats 17 top-tier teams during the weekend competition.Photo courtesy of Queens DA\u2019s office<\/p>\n