Tucker Ellis LLP successfully concluded its 2025 Trial Academy this week in the firm’s Cleveland office, providing trial lawyers with first-chair experience in a realistic courtroom setting. This year’s mock trial centered on a property insurer’s products liability claim arising from a golf cart fire that damaged a private recreational club.

The exercise tracked a detailed case file in which a property insurer, as subrogee of a private recreational club, pursued claims against a golf cart manufacturer/distributor, alleging defects in manufacture, design, and warnings related to the carts’ battery charging system. Participants tested strategic use of depositions and exhibits and applied the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and Evidence to issues of defect, causation, and allocation of fault, with motions practice and jury instructions incorporated into the program.

Congratulations to the trial teams—Maha Kabbash (New Jersey) and M.D. Akinmurele (Los Angeles) representing the Plaintiff with assistance from Lucy Zelina, and Spencer Krebs and Jay Shultz representing the Defendant with assistance from Brooke Pauley. Special thanks to program leaders Jonathan Cooper, Kevin Young, and Kari Burns; our faculty and jury volunteers; and Judge John Russo of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas for their participation.

The Trial Academy reflects Tucker Ellis’s ongoing commitment to developing the next generation of first-chair trial lawyers through rigorous training, mentorship, and hands-on advocacy.