Sacramento!

Two weeks ago, our team went to Sacramento for the McGeorge Ethics Competition (a legal malpractice case in which Doug and I represented the plaintiff).

Adam and I drove to Sacramento at midday on Thursday, and were pleasantly surprised to find such a pretty city awaiting us:

We checked into the deliciously swank Citizen Hotel, with it's striped wallpaper rooms with velvet chairs and diamond-glass-paned armoires and huge bathrooms and lovely library-like lobby and second floor bar.  Very nice indeed.  And due to a hilarious incident involving Doug walking in on someone because Adam and Doug's room had been double-booked, the boys ended up getting a suite and a hefty drinks credit!

The Federal Courthouse is where we spent the better part of two days.  Thursday evening Adam and Megan went up against Roger Williams, a law school in Rhode Island.  Doug and I played their witnesses and they did brilliantly.  We ended up winning the round 2-1.  The next morning Doug and I went up against a thoroughly good team from UCLA, whom we beat 3-0!  With only a fifteen minute turnaround between four hour trials, Doug and I found out we were again up for the afternoon round, against UC Davis.  Although we were tired, we pulled it together and had our best round yet!  We again won 3-0.  At the cocktail reception that night, we found out that four teams had gotten perfect 9-0 ballots over three rounds (Georgetown, Temple, Stetson, and Chicago), so we narrowly missed the finals with our 8-1 record.  It was a bit of a disappointment but we had great fun that night, staying up until practically dawn!

The next day was Saturday and, even though we were no longer in the running, we all had to stay for the reception that night.  So we spent the day eating a fabulous brunch on the river, walking around Old Town buying candy and darting under awnings to get out of the rain, visiting the Capitol, seeing I Love You, Man and finding suitable attire for the reception.  This involved the boys weighing in with their opinions as we tried on endless dresses.  In the end, I found the perfect inexpensive little frock - dark blue, silky, with flowers at the straps.

The reception turned out to be great fun.  It was held in our hotel, on the terrace under a great white tent.  It was a three-course dinner, with a keynote address by a lawyer from the firm that sponsors Hastings' trial team program and an announcement of the winners of the competition: an all-girl team from Georgetown.  We also talked with the UCLA team and Doug found out he was working with one of the boys in the Riverside DA's Office this summer!  I found out that another of the boys is working very near where I will be in LA.  We made plans to have lunch 

:-).

After the reception, we all went up to the boys' suite and chatted and watched SNL until, exhausted, we finally fell into bed.  The next morning, we headed back to San Francisco, able to hold our heads high after a great competition.  Next year, I hope we do even better!