Two second-year University law students, James Noonan and Steve Rogers, will be a part of the only U.S. team competing in the American Bar Association Client Counseling Competition in Hong Kong from April 7 to April 12. They won the national championship on March 19 and 20.
For each round of the competition, each two-person team met with an actor pretending to be a potential client, said law professor George Bell, who coached Noonan and Rogers for the competition. The team members, acting as lawyers, talked to the potential client for a 45-minute period. In these 45 minutes, the team was judged on their interviewing and counseling skills, he said. Each team was judged by two professional lawyers and one counselor.
Bell said the reason Noonan and Rogers were so successful was their team dynamic.
“They have good chemistry, and they know each other well and get along well,” he said.
Noonan said he and Rogers work well as a team and complement each other. He described Rogers’s personality as more aggressive than his own.
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“A lot of times, Steve is more of the lawyer and I’m more of the counselor,” Noonan said.
Noonan said he helps people understand how their decisions affect their families and their personal happiness, while Rogers tends to focus on deep legal analysis.
“We always get comments about our ability to work together,” Noonan said.
Rogers said the competition judges had described their team has having a “good cop, bad cop” dynamic.
He said both he and Noonan had worked as Mormon missionaries, although they didn’t meet until law school. As a result of this, they both have experience talking to people about their needs and figuring out how to help them, he said.
Bell said no University team has ever won the regional competition and that he is proud of Rogers and Noonan for advancing through both the regional and national competitions.
Rogers and Noonan each received a plaque, a trophy and a cash prize for winning the national competition, Bell said. There will be 20 teams competing at the international competition in Hong Kong.
Rogers said he feels he and Noonan have a good chance at the competition.
“We feel confident in our way of doing things,” Rogers said.
