closing arguments
A long, cold Friday rain fell on UGA's north campus quad on the afternoon of February 5, 2010. First-year UGA Law student Kim Jones sat nearly alone in Hirsch Hall’s upstairs courtroom, rehearsing ten minutes of prose she had fashioned and then honed through a half dozen rounds of the Ralph Beaird Closing Argument Competition -- prose that had carried her from point to point in a single-elimination geometry with its terminus minutes away: the Final Round.
Alone in the crowded courtroom, Kim and her opponent, fellow 1L Andrei Ionescu, awaited the “All Rise” that would mark the beginning of the Final Round.
Kim gave as much of her attention as she could muster to the presiding judge and master of ceremonies, Professor Ron Carlson, as he opened the proceedings.
The preliminaries out of the way, Kim rose from her chair at the plaintiff’s table and began to address the jury. Seated in the jury box were United States District Judge Richard Story, Justice Harold Melton of the Supreme Court of Georgia, Chief Judge Lawton Stephens and Judge David Sweat of the Superior Court of Georgia, District Attorney Ken Mauldin, lawyer’s lawyer Ed Tolley, UGA Law’s Associate Dean Paul Kurtz and Professors Usha Rodriguez and Lori Ringhand, and UGA’s Director of Legal Affairs Steve Shewmaker. No pressure.
Andrei, representing the defendant, then took his turn before the jury.
“We find for the plaintiff,” intoned Ed Tolley, serving as foreperson for the distinguished panel of jurors, awarding first place in the 2010 Ralph Beaird Closing Argument Competition to Kim Jones, flanked here by her parents in Hirsch Hall’s second-floor courtroom.
More of Bob Brussack's photographs of the competition and the post-competition reception are available on Flickr.
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