Kaia Savage is an executive at Brunswick Group, a critical issues advisory firm in San Francisco, where she works on crisis advisory and litigation communications strategy for clients facing high-profile public and legal scrutiny.

Kaia grew up in San Diego and attended UC Berkeley for undergrad, where she earned a B.A. in Rhetoric and minored in Gender and Women’s Studies. She graduated with honors and was awarded the Rhetoric department’s thesis award for her honors thesis, which examined how normative femininity functions as a set of unwritten “shadow laws” in judicial discretionary decisions affecting female criminal defendants. 

Kaia joined Cal Mock Trial with no prior mock trial experience and went on to compete for four years as both an attorney and a witness. She earned 15 individual awards over her competitive career, including All-Regional, All-National, and All-American honors. She was the first UC Berkeley student ever invited to Trial By Combat, UCLA and Drexel Law’s invite-only 1-on-1 national championship for the top 16 collegiate competitors in the country, where she finished as a semifinalist. In her most recent season, Kaia was the highest-ranked attorney at Regionals, the highest-ranked attorney and witness at ORCS, and the highest-ranked attorney in her division at Nationals. That season, Kaia captained A team through an undefeated 8-0 record at ORCS and a 6th place finish at Nationals. Kaia held leadership positions on the team for three of her four years, serving as Auxiliary Treasurer, Vice President, and, most recently, President of the program in the 2025-2026 season, in which Cal was the only program in the country to advance 100% of its teams out of Regionals, 100% of its teams out of ORCS, and see 100% of its teams at Nationals win team awards. She was also a four-time team captain, captaining Fall teams, B team, and A team over her time in the program.

This is Kaia’s first year coaching, and she will primarily be coaching Blue team with Avni. She is so excited to work with new and returning members this year, particularly on building courtroom presentation skills and confidence. Kaia is a die-hard CMT fan for life (#ilovecalmocktrial), and she can’t wait to get lit-igation with everyone this season!

In her free time, Kaia likes to go dancing, do yoga, go camping, wine tasting, redecorate her apartment, and hang out with her amazing successor, partner, and your beloved president, Yonatan, and their two kitties, Blewbie and Pierre.