Notable Successes

Caitri Feddeler

Kerri-Ann Limbeek

Law360 featured Desmarais LLP’s industry-recognized courtroom training program in a recent story detailing the firm’s annual mock trial series, which gives summer associates and first-through-third-year associates hands-on experience in trying cases.
 
The 2023 program included approximately 40 participants, about half of whom were summer associates, Kerri-Ann Limbeek, Desmarais LLP partner and summer program co-chair, told Law360. This year, the firm held five mock trials. The firm’s partners serve as judges and people from the community serve as jurors. As the trials unfold, participants take breaks every few hours, so partners can provide feedback on the associates’ performances, such as offering tips on their presentation styles and tactics for getting evidence admitted.
 
The annual training is part of Desmarais LLP’s summer associate program, during which summer associates spend about two months receiving hands-on experience in the office and preparing for the mock trials. At the end of July each year, the firm flies the summer associates to its New York headquarters for the mock trials themselves. Summer associates take on key roles in the mock trials, including openings, closings, direct examinations, and cross-examinations.
 
Over the years, the program has garnered a strong reputation among law-school students who often want to hear more about it during on-campus interviews, Limbeek told Law360. “It gets around,” she said.
 
Caitri Feddeler, a Desmarais LLP associate who went through the program twice as a summer associate, told Law360 that the training helped her fully think through strategies for positioning clients in the best possible light at trial, particularly during openings and closings.
 
"Probably one of the most important lessons that we learn during trial training ... is just about how important your themes are and figuring out what kind of story you're going to tell," Feddeler told Law360. She added, “The jury's going to care about who's the good guy, who's the bad guy.”
 
Read the Law360 story

Caitri Feddeler

Kerri-Ann Limbeek