You know when you make friends with a fellow coach at a tournament, and realize how interesting they are?—even when you lose to their team? We’ve felt it too. That’s because the trial advocacy community is full of amazing people.
Since we rarely get to see each other, even outside a pandemic, we thought sharing one-on-one conversations would help bring our community closer together.
That’s our goal with Unscripted Direct.
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Trial Advocacy Map
When inviting guests on the show, we found it helpful to create this map of people in our community. It occurred to us that you might find it helpful, too. Please email us or drop us a note below with any corrections or additions; we aim to make this exhaustive and keep it updated.
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Spencer Pahlke
Spencer’s practice focuses on plaintiffs’ side catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death cases involving defective products, vehicular collisions, dangerous conditions of public and private property, and medical malpractice.
Outside of his practice, Spencer runs Berkeley Law’s trial competition program and serves as a lecturer in trial advocacy. Under Spencer’s guidance, the program has risen to national prominence, having won many national honors and distinctions, including several national championships. Spencer serves as the Regional Representative for Northern California, Nevada, Arizona, and Hawaii in the National Association of Legal Advocacy Educators.
Spencer is a co-author of Introduction to Trial Advocacy: The Elements of Trial, a pioneering all-online video lecture series that teaches aspiring trial attorneys at all levels the fundamentals of trying a case.
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Justin Bernstein
Before joining UCLA, Justin was an attorney at O’Melveny & Myers and Haynes & Boone, where he represented Fortune 500 clients in securities and business litigation. He now consults with attorneys preparing for trial.
Justin is the youngest person ever inducted into the American Mock Trial Association’s Coaches Hall of Fame. He has coached 11 trial advocacy teams to national or world championships at the law school, collegiate, and high school levels. His law students have won Top Gun (twice), Tournament of Champions (twice), TYLA National Trial Competition, and AAJ Student Trial Advocacy Competition. His undergraduate students at UC Irvine and NYU three times finished their seasons as the number one ranked teams in the country.
Justin graduated from UC Berkeley and NYU School of Law. He likes poker, television, and playing with his dog Heisman.
