Benjamin Garmoe '16 is the Salsbury Director of Trial Advocacy for the National Trial Team at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. Garmoe is a 2016 graduate of Maryland Carey Law, where he was a captain of the National Trial Team, winning a national championship at the 2015 Lone Star Classic, where he also earned the award for Best Closing Argument. In 2016, he was named Best Advocate at the South Texas Mock Trial Challenge, one of the nation’s largest advocacy competitions. During law school, he was also active with the Moot Court Board, where he won the prestigious Myerowitz Moot Court Competition in 2015.
He now directs Maryland Carey Law’s National Trial Team, the law school’s premier trial advocacy co-curricular organization, established in 1999 by Director Emeritus Jerome Deise. Members of the Trial Team are selected after participating in the Salsbury Trial Advocacy Tournament, which is a rigorous three-round tryout process. Once on the team, members participate in comprehensive advocacy training through classroom instruction and outside competitions. The Trial Team routinely places at or wins advocacy competitions around the country and is recognized as one of the most successful trial advocacy teams nationwide. As the Salsbury director, he is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the nationally ranked Trial Team, including teaching the Trial Team class and managing the team curriculum.
His current position was established in 2022 via a generous gift from Stuart Salsbury '71 and Suzanne Salsbury '73. Their gift endowed this new position — the Salsbury Director of Trial Advocacy — to manage the law school’s trial team program. Prior to this endowment, he served as the managing director of the National Trial Team from 2020 to 2021.
After graduating from Maryland Carey Law in 2016, he served as a law clerk for the Honorable Edward R. K. Hargadon in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. After the clerkship, he transitioned to private practice at the office of Vernon & Fanshaw, serving as staff counsel for Government Employees Insurance Company (GEICO). During his nearly four years with Vernon & Fanshaw, he tried hundreds of cases in District Court and Circuit Court and handled numerous complex civil litigation matters. He left Vernon & Fanshaw for his current position in 2020.
He served as head coach of the Mock Trial Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) from 2015 to 2022, and continues to serve as faculty advisor for UMBC Mock Trial. UMBC Mock Trial is one of the nation’s most successful undergraduate mock trial teams. In 2021, UMBC defeated Yale University to win the 2021 American Mock Trial Association (AMTA) National Championship Tournament, and UMBC Mock Trial was ranked the #1 team in the country for the 2021-2022 season. In addition to his work at UMBC, he is a member of the board of directors for Maryland Youth and the Law (MYLAW), the governing body for high school mock trial in Maryland. He is the author of three cases used for state-wide high school Mock Trial competition in Maryland, and he chairs the MYLAW Mock Trial Committee.