Bryce Hensley ’17 wins best advocate award at the 2016 Tournament of Champions

Bryce Hensley, a third-year student at Chicago-Kent College of Law at Illinois Tech, has won the best advocate award at the 2016 Tournament of Champions, held October 21 to 23 at the Phillip Burton Federal Building in San Francisco. In addition, Hensley and his Chicago-Kent teammates Jon Emmanuel, Warren Fasone and Tyler Mikan placed among the top four teams in the final competition.

Chicago-Kent defeated teams from Harvard Law School, Samford University's Cumberland School of Law, Drexel University School of Law, and Wake Forest University School of Law in the preliminary rounds, before falling to California Western School of Law in the semifinals.

Best advocate Bryce Hensley graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a double major in political science and history. In addition to competing on the trial advocacy team, Hensley is a member of the Chicago-Kent Law Review and the Phi Alpha Delta legal fraternity. He volunteers with Lawyers in the Classroom.

The team was coached by Judge David Erickson, director of Chicago-Kent's Trial Advocacy Program; Judge Demetrios Kottaras '84, David Lavin, Ana Montelongo '16 and Erik Wilson '12.

Sponsored by the National Board of Trial Advocacy, the Tournament of Champions is one of the nation's premier law school trial advocacy competitions. Each year, only 16 schools are invited to this competition based on their three-year performance record at the National Trial Competition and the American Association for Justice's Student Trial Advocacy Competition.

Chicago-Kent's trial advocacy teams have won numerous individual student honors and regional and national competitions. In the most recent U.S. News & World Report graduate school rankings, Chicago-Kent's Trial Advocacy Program is ranked third in the country.