Paula Colby-Clements Invites Esperanza Girls to View MSL Court of Appeals

At the invitation of Paula Colby-Clements, GWTK member and Professor and Director of Admissions at Massachusetts School of Law (MSL), two 7 ^th grade Esperanza girls, Ashley and Alexa joined over 100 high schools students at MSL on Tuesday, November 10^th to watch a live sitting of the Massachusetts Court of Appeals. High school mock trial advocacy teams from schools such as Central Catholic, Saint John’s, Saint John’s Prep and Cushing Academy (to name a few) were all in attendance. The girls arrived just before 9:00 AM and were part of a ½ hour session with the three Justices’ Law Clerks who provided an overview of the cases to be heard at oral argument. After that, the students went to the courtroom where Justice Trainor, Presiding Justice McHugh, and Justice Hanlon all took the bench. In the hour and half morning session the students heard 3 cases with arguments being made by counsel for both the appellant and the appellee. They heard 2 criminal cases and one civil case. At the close of the morning session the justices remained in the courtroom and spoke to the students about what they saw and fielded questions. The Esperanza girls were the only middle school students involved in the event but seemed comfortable being with such a large group of high school students and really enjoyed the experience; talking about what they saw and learned all the way back to Esperanza Academy.