FROM MOCK TRIAL TO THE INTAKE DESK: Graduate Student’s Hands-On Path to the Courtroom

Adrianna Iacono’s week runs on a tight schedule. As an intake specialist at the Boca Raton personal injury law firm, Demand The Limits, a graduate student in Criminology at the College of Social Work and Criminal Justice, and the president of Florida Atlantic University’s mock trial team, she puts in long days of work and long evenings of study.

“It’s a lot of hard work,” she said. “Mock trial is like another full-time job.”

But she does it out of a fascination for watching the courtroom process unfold, which she’s felt since she was a child. It’s a fascination that’s turned into a calling: she plans to go to law school to become a trial attorney after she graduates.

Adrianna’s interest started early, sparked by crime and legal dramas, but it became more concrete as she watched the legal system affect people close to her. Originally from Long Island, NY, she observed a custody and child support dispute involving her younger sister many years ago. That experience made it vividly clear that the courtroom is a place where real lives change.

Then, during college, a car accident in 2023 deepened that perspective. The case is still pending, but the process required her to participate in depositions and navigate the realities of being a client.

“You really see the bad side of things,” she said. She understood how confusing and frustrating the system can feel from the outside and how many what-ifs appear when you’re living through it. That experience didn’t discourage her, though; it sharpened and clarified her interest in the legal system and expanded her understanding of its inner workings.

 

Seeing the Justice System at Work

While she was an undergraduate at Florida Atlantic, Adrianna began supplementing her coursework with real-world training, especially by observing the courtroom beyond the neatly scripted scenes you see on television. 

Between her bachelor’s and master’s degree programs, she worked as a legal secretary in the Guardian ad Litem office in Punta Gorda, FL. The job was document-heavy—lots of court filings, case organization, and file management—but it came with something students rarely get: consistent access to the human and procedural side of child welfare cases. She met children and families working through the system, watched hearings, and learned how attorneys coordinate in real time.

What surprised her most wasn’t the drama: it was the normalcy. She recalled watching attorneys on different sides talking through logistics and strategy before a trial began.

“I’d never seen that before,” she said, “Attorneys that are all on different sides interacting with each other just professionally.”

That behind-the-scenes collaboration helped her understand how much preparation and professionalism underlie formal courtroom proceedings.

The experience also reshaped how she thinks about justice in practice. She saw judges weigh child placement decisions and prioritize what’s best for the child, even when adults in the case wanted something different. She also witnessed community support in action, like volunteers bringing birthday and holiday gifts to children who might otherwise go without. She saw that the work was deeply personal.

 

Mock Trial Leadership and the Work of Building Access 

Before she started in her current role, Adrianna sharpened her courtroom instincts on Florida Atlantic’s mock trial team. Today, as the organization's president, she helps others do the same.

She first joined a mock trial team in high school, then returned to it in college at Florida Atlantic. After a year as a member, she became president, serving for two years and continuing this year while pursuing her master's degree.

As president, she’s learned leadership the hard way: by planning travel, coordinating meetings and workshops, managing logistics, and making decisions that affect the whole team. She describes it as part leadership role, part event planner, and part advocate.

 

 

One priority, she says, has been improving access to participation. She and others on the team have worked to secure funding to cover supplies and travel. That effort was bolstered by the team’s co-director and mentor, Joel Feldman, who leveraged his professional connections as a practicing attorney to introduce the program to potential supporters. The students’ competitive success and growth ultimately captured a donor’s interest, leading to a $25,000 annual commitment for the next four years. The gift not only provides operational support for team expenses, but also names and funds the university’s first invitational tournament – The Susan Stocker Foundation Mock Trial Tournament – which is attracting competition to the Florida Atlantic flagship campus throughout the state and as far as Texas.

Frank de la Torre, J.D., interim associate dean of the college and coach for the mock trial club, said Adrianna’s leadership was instrumental in the team’s successes last year.

“Under Adrianna’s leadership, the mock trial club finished in second place in the Phi Alpha Delta National Mock Trial Competition,” he said, “And the club is currently ranked as the No. 2 mock trial team in the country.”

 

 

Demand The Limits: Full-Time Work with a Front-Row View

Currently, Adrianna balances graduate school with a full-time job at Demand The Limits Injury Attorneys, the law firm founded by attorney Alan Siegel, J.D., the recipient of the College of Social Work and Criminal Justice’s Distinguished Alumni Award for 2025. Started in 2018 by Siegel and his partner, Andrew Odza, J.D., Demand The Limits has built a team of more than 50 employees, including seven lawyers, based out of branch offices throughout Southern Florida and extending up to Orlando.

“We’ve been incredibly fortunate to have Adrianna as part of our team,” Siegel said. “It was clear right away that she brings a strong work ethic, curiosity, and dedication to everything she does.”

Adrianna was hired in October 2025 after a connection that started through mock trial. Earlier in the year, she participated in a mock jury experience at the firm with other students. The attorneys presented evidence as if the students were jurors, and the students got to see how the firm builds a case.

The experience left an impression. Adrianna liked the environment, the team, and the work. She applied and, after several interviews, got the job. Now she manages intake paperwork at the firm and is learning the systems law firms use to manage client information and trial documents. “Learning that process is really helpful,” she said. It’s demanding, she admitted, but it’s also building muscle memory for the career she wants.

“It is this type of maturity and dedication that will allow Adrianna to succeed in law school,” de la Torre said. “I look forward to one day welcoming her as a member of the Florida Bar.”

 

 

 
A Future in Court, Built Through Real Experience

By the time Adrianna begins law school, she’ll already have spent years seeing how the justice system works from multiple angles. She’s practiced building arguments and navigating the rules of evidence, and she’s seen how client intake works at a big law firm.

That layered experience gives her a perspective on the law that many students don’t gain until much later in their legal career. Instead of entering law school with only theoretical knowledge, Adrianna already understands many of the practical rhythms of legal work—from client intake to case preparation to courtroom strategy.

For Adrianna, those experiences are more than resume builders. They’re helping her test different paths within the legal profession and develop the confidence to navigate them. Whatever legal path she chooses, she’ll enter law school and eventually the courtroom, with a clearer understanding of the system she hopes to serve.

“Watching [Adrianna] grow during her time with us while preparing for the next step toward law school has been a real privilege,” said Siegel. “We’re proud to have been part of her journey and look forward to seeing all that she accomplishes in her legal career.”