Winning Is Just the Beginning

The Advocacy Program brings home plenty of hardware. Recent victories include national championships in the prestigious 2023 Martin Luther King, Jr. National Civil Rights Trial Competition, 2023 Georgetown White Collar Crime Invitational, and the 2024 Duberstein Bankruptcy Moot Court Competition, placing finalists (2d place) at the 2024 IP Moot Court National, taking regional championships at 2024 IP Moot Court, the Phillip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court in 2023, and the TYLA National Trial Competition in 2024, as well as a host of individual bests for student advocates.

Photo above: Students celebrate with the 2023 Judge John R. Brown Admiralty Moot Court Competition Cup.

“I’m really proud of what this program does,” enthuses Mike Golden ’01. Golden took the reins as director of the Advocacy Program in 2022. “And it’s me now standing on the shoulders of giants like Tracy McCormack ’86, Pat Hazel ’71, and Larry Niemann ’62. I didn’t build this Cadillac. I didn’t put the gas in the tank or fill the tires with air. I’m just the lucky guy who gets to drive it around. Now we’re driving this Cadillac and we’re going to take it out for a spin. We’re going to see how far and fast we can go.”

How far and fast for Golden means impact. Lasting impact.

“I believe we have a responsibility as a law school, and as an advocacy program, to defend our constitutionally protected right to a jury trial. And as more companies try through things like arbitration agreements to find ways around juries, we have an obligation to protect this constitutionally enshrined right to a jury trial in civil cases. And the only way we can do that is with excellent trial lawyers.”

That powerful vision translates into equipping students to “become their most persuasive self,” says Professor Tracy McCormack, Texas Law Senior Lecturer. McCormack, who led the Advocacy Program for over two decades (2000 to 2022), garnered support and resources for advocacy at Texas Law that brought together courses, adjunct faculty, and coaches, mostly Texas Law alumni, into a single program delivering what is now a gold-standard for experiential learning.

If you want to study courtroom advocacy with some of the smartest students in the whole country, this is the place to do it.

Mike Golden

Texas Law’s course offerings go well beyond intro classes with advanced courses specifically focused on civil and criminal cases, taking depositions, dealing with expert witnesses, and advanced strategic planning in civil litigation. The Advocacy Program offers 11 classes each year. That’s two to three times more than typically are offered at other law schools.

Beyond formal instruction, the program offers an extensive calendar of informal learning opportunities such as the Fall Litigation Institute and, for 1Ls, the Public Speaking Workshop.

With the more in-depth courses and informal options, students are better prepared not only for competition, but are day-one ready for practice. In the Advocacy Program, “we give students the skills and the confidence – and even the vocabulary – to convince senior lawyers early in their career, ‘I’m someone you can trust to do a direct exam. I know I’m a second-year lawyer, you can trust me to stand up in front of this judge, to argue this motion, to take this witness. Because I know what I’m doing,’” says Golden.

The students agree. “The classroom is a great place to learn new concepts,” observes 3L Noah Hoffman, a member of the six-person national championship MLK Competition team. “Competition quickly exposes your weaknesses in a way that is hard to replicate. When the lights are on and there is no safety blanket, you get to see what you’re really made of,” he added.

“My coaches and teammates made it possible, even fun, to jump into the deep end and come out victorious round after round,” says 3L Monica Dike, also a member of the MLK national championship team. “I fell in love with the experience; now I am confident that I have a future in trial law.”

Emily Chang ’24, a clerk for Chief Judge Stacey G. C. Jernigan at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas, participated in competition as both a 2L and 3L. She, Abby Rogers ’24, and current 3L Temi Fayiga won the Duberstein Bankruptcy Moot Court Competition in March 2024. “Duberstein was by far my favorite law school experience,” Chang said. “From practice all the way to competition, for both years I competed I felt supported and challenged in the best ways. Winning was just the icing on the cake!”

To Golden, this is a deeply personal refrain.

“It is no exaggeration to say that my entire career path was shaped by the Advocacy Program,” Golden said. “I learned that I was meant to be in the courtroom the first time I tried a mock trial round.” Golden was on the national championship team winning the 2000 Tournament of Champions.

A Chancellor and member of Texas Law Review, Golden built his career on trying cases, first at one of the nation’s top Big Law firms then forming his own, Boulette Golden & Marin.

“Tracy McCormack helped me – like so many others – with a simple piece of advice: the best way to reach and persuade an audience, to connect with them, is to be your genuine self,” Golden said. “Tracy, whom I count as a close friend, was my mentor and one of my very favorite teachers in law school. But she taught me very early on that I couldn’t aspire to be her; if I wanted to be successful, I needed to be me.”

While Golden notes that the Advocacy Program is aimed at those wanting to spend their careers in a courtroom, “there is an enormous benefit for anyone. Every lawyer has clients, and advocacy is universal. All lawyers can employ the skills of persuasion in a job interview, while pitching clients, interacting with opposing counsel, or when speaking to the media,” he noted.

“No matter how far you think your legal career will be from a courtroom, sooner or later, something is going to go wrong,” he said. “And when things go wrong, they get settled in a courtroom. Our students are ready for that.”

So just how far and how fast will this Cadillac go? For Golden, it’s simple.

“I judge our success by students who come up to us and say, ‘This program made a difference to me; this program literally changed my life.’”