April 2005 - Riverside County Bar Association

lawyers of all areas and levels of practice, is designedto improve the skills, professionalism and ethics of thebench and bar. Members are divided into individualteams, each of which is led by a judicial officer. Eachmonth, the Inn meets at the Mission Inn for dinner,during which a program is presented by one of the Inn’steams. Those programs involve topics on ethics, skills,and professionalism.I am fortunate to be on “Team Prevost” this year,a team led by Commissioner Jeff Prevost, who currentlypresides over the Riverside Family Law Court.Along with Commissioner Prevost and my fellow teammembers, Steve Geeting, Jim Manning, Chris Harmon,Eddie Diaz, Stephanie Fields, and Rob McCarty, westruggled to come up with a topic for our team presentation,which we learned was to be in May of 2005.Commissioner Prevost came up with the brilliant idea ofsomehow incorporating Mock Trial into a program thatcould be presented to our fellow Inn members. Beinga Mock Trial coach already, I immediately realized thebenefits that additional coaching resources would havefor our team, and I persuaded my Inn’s team to “adopt”the Santiago Mock Trial team as its pet project.During our months of preparation, Santiago studentswere privileged to have visiting attorneys frommy Inns of Court team attend some of their practices.Michael J. EldermanSantiago team members on their way to Final Competition.My fellow Inns members also shared their time by offeringtheir email addresses as another outlet for students to askquestions or obtain further critiques of their performances.Commissioner Prevost was particularly generous with histime in judging some of our scrimmages and making asmany practices as he could during the training portion ofour season.After months of hard work and dedication, our team preparedto enter competition, which began in February. There(continued next page)Riverside Lawyer, March 2005 21