Before announcing the winner, the members of The Mininno Law Firm would like to officially thank and congratulate all five participants: Scott Bass, Jessica Dochney, Leyla Wirtz, Albertine Shain, and Nia Holsten. You should be very proud of yourselves and the essays you presented for the contest. You should also thank your friends and family for the support they gave each of you. There were thousands of votes that were logged.
At first, Scott Bass’s and Leyla Renee Wirtz’s contingents made them both very strong and early favorites. Then as the voting went along, while the others were receiving consistent votes, the Bass Team was outdoing them but a wide margin. Just when it appeared that it would be a Bass Team vote landslide, Jessica Dochney entered the contest and received tremendous early and strong voter support, as did Leyla Renee Wirtz.
While everyone continued to receive consistent support, just a few weeks ago, it looked like a three person race with the Bass Team leading, the Wirtz Team second and Team Dochney a bit behind in third. That’s when the “Albertine L. Shain rally” began.
As late as two weeks ago, Shain’s vote was just 7.7% of the totals – that’s when the entire dynamic of the contest changed. Since that time, Team Shain continued to show late and overwhelming support, which dramatically altered the results of the popular vote.
The final popular vote was much closer than it had been during the entire contest. Because the popular vote was so close, the judging the final essays on a comparative basis became even more important. This judging was the hard part. I heard discussions between the judges about voice, style, grammar, a concise and clear argument, staying on topic, enthusiasm and overall presentation of subject knowledge.
The judges debated these ranking and ratings for several hours and then presented me with their own ranking results. I then tallied up the percentage rank from the popular vote and the percentage rank from the judge’s vote and added the two percentages together… The results were within a few percentage points of each other… but Albertine Shain is our winner!
Congratulations to Albertine Shain!
To the others, your essays were all well written and showed an advanced knowledge of our justice system. I really enjoyed reading them, your friends and families’ comments and seeing the great support each of you received. Believe me, the contest was “THE HOT TOPIC” of discussion among us here at the Mininno Law Office this last month. You all worked very hard and it showed. My only regret is that there could be only one winner.
Thank you to all of the participants and good luck in future endeavors. I will be happy to write a letter of reference for any of you if you ever need one. Please let me know if you would like any confidential feedback from our judges on your essays. We may run another contest in the fall, so please keep checking back.