Natasha has been coaching mock trial for almost 10 years. She finds the experience with the students tremendously fulfilling and maintains that coaching keeps her trials skills honed. Having coached several years at the high school level, she decided to assist some of her former high schoolers as they embarked on creating a mock trial program for the University of Arizona. For years she was head coach of the University of Arizona Undergraduate Mock Trial program. The program, founded in 2002 was among the Nation's top 25 programs. More recently, she has broken off from the original program to help create the LawCats. The LawCats take pride in keeping their membership to only one team so that more individualized coaching and molding can occur.

Natasha's former students also worked to organize a national invitational tournament which brought in 34 teams from across the country. The event, the Desert Classic, was held each year at the end of January at the Pima County Superior Courthouse. The event relied on volunteers from the Tucson legal community, as well as many friends and colleagues of Natasha's, to act as judges for the competition. Unfortunately, those former students are now in law school themselves at Arizona State University finding much success in assisting that program.

(from top to bottom, left to right: Casey McGinley, Esq. (asst. coach), Joel Patterson, Brandon Nagy, Jeremy Tor, James Cool, Natasha Wrae, Esq. (head coach) and her 1 year old son Connor, Amrietha Nellan, Sarah Barrios, Ashley Hunsaker)

The University of Arizona team pictured here finished 3rd in their division at the National Championship Tournament in Des Moines, IA. Their finish with a record of 6-1-1 places the team 4th out of over 540 teams nationwide. Natasha's students also received the prestigious Spirit of the American Mock Trial Association Award. The Spirit of AMTA is awarded to two teams from the 64 team field at the National Tournament. It is awarded to those students, who by vote of their peer opponents, best exemplify the virtues of congenality, fair play and professionalism. Natasha's students received the only perfect Spirit of AMTA score in the 64 team field, receiving three perfect 10 ratings from their peers. Natasha's students defeated competition from Notre Dame University, Loras College (3rd place overall), University of Texas at Austin (10th place overall) and Princeton University. To date, 4th place nationally is the program's highest finish.