Photo: Baylor Law. Rebecca Goren addresses the jury in the Top Gun 2026 final round.
Rebecca Goren, a law student at UC Berkeley School of Law, has won the 2026 Top Gun National Mock Trial Competition, one of the most prestigious individual honors in American trial advocacy. Held at Baylor Law School in June 2026, Top Gun is invitation-only: it brings together the 16 best law-student trial advocates in the country and pits them against one another as individuals, not teams. Goren took the title, and its $10,000 prize, in the final round. Our congratulations to her and to Berkeley Law.
In the championship round, Goren defeated Ali Alekri of NYU School of Law. The two semifinalists were Dresden Day of the University of Georgia School of Law and Dan Cohen of Harvard Law School, an indication of the company Goren was keeping: this is a field drawn from the top of the profession's next generation.
What Top Gun is
Baylor Law's Top Gun National Mock Trial Competition is unlike most advocacy contests. Where a typical moot court or mock trial competition fields teams from dozens of schools, Top Gun invites only 16 advocates, selected as individuals on the strength of their records, and has them try a case one-on-one over an intense multi-day tournament. Baylor Law, whose advocacy program is consistently ranked at or near the top in the country, hosts and runs it. "The quality of competition that you face here is unmatched anywhere else," said Judge Jim Roberts Jr., who took part in 2026. "It's the most intense competition."
Because it is individual and invitation-only, a Top Gun title carries a particular weight: it is not a team result but a single advocate outperforming fifteen of the best in the country, one trial at a time.
Why it matters
Trial advocacy is a craft learned by doing, and competitions like Top Gun are where the most promising young courtroom lawyers are identified. For Rebecca Goren, the win marks her, by name, as one of the finest student trial advocates in the United States for the year, a credential that follows an advocate into practice. For UC Berkeley School of Law, it is a national trial-advocacy title earned against the very best.
For UC Berkeley law students
UC Berkeley students and alumni have complimentary access to LegalAlphabet, where they can search legal jobs and internships worldwide, including litigation and trial roles. Visit the Berkeley Law campus page, browse current openings on the United States legal jobs board, or read more from our Law School News desk.
Sources
This report is based on the announcement published by Baylor Law School. Quotations are drawn from that announcement.
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