A team of UALR students from the William H. Bowen School of Law won a regional trial competition last weekend sponsored by the Texas Young Lawyers Association. UALR’s team is one from only two law schools that will represent the nine law schools in Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas at the National Trial Competition in San Antonio in late March.

The UALR team competed in three qualifying rounds and was one of eight teams to make the cut. After elimination rounds, the team went on to defeat the University of Colorado Saturday morning and defeated the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in the afternoon to advance to the National Trial Competition in March.

Team members are:

• Kristin Bryant Bell, a third-year student at the Bowen school who graduated magna cum laude from Texas Christian University with a degree in criminal justice. She is a graduate of Colonial Forge High School in Stafford, Va., and is the daughter of Bill and Patti Bryant of Little Rock.
• Chris Givens, also a third year at Bowen, earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri in Columbia and is an assistant sports editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He graduated from Lake Zurich, Ill., High School near Chicago and is the son of William and Kathi Givens of Tampa, Fla.
• Molly Sullivan, a third year law student, graduated magna cum laude from UALR in 2005 with a bachelor’s degree in political science and minor in history. She graduated from Little Rock Christian Academy and is the daughter of Susan and J. Thomas Sullivan, a UALR law professor.

Bell and Sullivan were members of the Bowen team invited to the National Tournament of Champions sponsored by the National Institute for Trial Advocacy based on the trial teams’ records over the past three years. That competition was in Baltimore at the University of Maryland.

“This is a big honor for our law school,” said John DiPippa, dean of the Bowen School, of the latest win.

The UALR team was coach by Professor Paula Casey, a former U.S. attorney, and Asst. U.S. Attorney Michael D. Johnson.