14-year-old realizes dream as attorney at mock trial
BY JENNIFER KOHLHEPP
Staff Writer

JENNIFER KOHLHEPP Madeline Collins, of Millstone Township, was chosen by Millstone Township Middle School to attend a LeadAmerica conference to study criminal and civil law.

MILLSTONE - This summer, Madeline Collins learned that being a lawyer is not as easy as it looks on TV's "Law & Order."

The 14-year-old, who will enter Allentown High School as a freshman in the fall, doesn't seem at all daunted by this new knowledge. She has wanted to be an attorney ever since her father, now a retired New York City police officer, started telling her stories about the lawyers he worked with in the Big Apple.

From the time she was a little girl, Madeline has admired the attorney's art of persuasion. The Millstone Township Middle School graduate now has her sights set on an Ivy League school education and a career as a corporate lawyer.

Madeline's aspirations and academic success led the middle school administration to choose her to attend a 10-day LeadAmerica program at St. John's University in Queens, N.Y.

At LeadAmerica's Law & Trial Advocacy conference held July 13-22, law professors and practicing attorneys helped guide Madeline through criminal and civil law activities. She learned about ethical issues along with crafting oral arguments and questioning witnesses through lectures, simulations, mock trials, debates and discussions.

In one of the mock trials, Madeline was given a chance to temporarily realize her dream when she served as the defense attorney for police officers on trial for allegedly shooting an unarmed minor. She explained that the officers she represented believed that the minor was reaching for a gun at the time of the alleged incident, although an investigation revealed that it was only a cellular phone that had been in his pocket.

During the mock trial, Madeline had the opportunity for direct and cross examinations of witnesses. She also wrote the closing argument for her team.

"A closing statement ties together the whole rest of the trial," she said. "It is the last effort to persuade the jury [that] this is what they should vote on."

Madeline's closing argument must have been convincing, given that the jury ruled in her clients' favor and acquitted them of any wrongdoing.

"The jury found the county police department not liable in the shooting," she said.

Madeline said that while she did not find it difficult to get up and speak before the judge and jury, she did find all the preparation work for the trial a lot harder than what she has seen on TV.

"Being a lawyer takes a lot of work and a lot of reading," she said. "But that's okay, I like to read."

Madeline's mother, Mary, called her daughter a natural arbitrator.

"She is very good with people and often helps her friends out," she said.

Madeline said her parents have contributed to the type of person she has become and that her second-grade teacher, Joanne Schiumo, also taught her important communication lessons, such as how to look people directly in the eye when speaking to them.

At the Millstone Township Middle School, she had a chance to hone her advocacy skills in a peer-to-peer group that worked through peer-pressure problems using skits and other activities. She was also captain of the varsity lacrosse and field hockey teams and a member of mock trial, band and chorus.

A member of Girl Scout Troop 1439, Madeline has also earned the Bronze and Silver Girl Scout awards for service projects related to protecting the local watershed and aiding battered and abused women.