Kochen makes good in court and on it.

Dribbling basketballs. Shooting hoops. Pointing out winning techniques. Assessing video of the opponent's game--it's all practice beyond the courtroom for young lawyer Jenna Kochen.

For the past six years, she has been an assistant coach to the Miami Country Day School girls varsity basketball team, helping them rise to No. 1 in Florida with wins at the Florida Class 3A State Championship for two consecutive years, and at the Dick's Sporting Goods National Championship at Madison Square Garden last month in New York for the first time in the school's history.

As a former player on the team, she said coaching came naturally when, during extended breaks from Babson College in Massachusetts, she'd return home to Miami and occasionally help out the girls.

"This is the high school I went to. If I was around on summer break, winter break, Thanksgiving, I'd come back and visit. A lot of my friends were still on the team, so I'd come to some practices, and kept in contact with former players, and the head coach, who was the coach my senior year," she said.

"I really found myself drawn to it. I was just there. I found myself coaching without even being a coach. It was just in me.

"You see things from another perspective when you're on the other side of the line. When you're playing, you're so caught up in the game that you don't always see what's going on. I would find myself pointing things out to the players. If I saw something that I thought they could improve on, I'd point it out. I think it just grew little by little."

Kochen was spending so much time volunteering for the team, head coach Ochiel Swaby said, "Why not be part of the staff?"

"I love sports, and my family loves sports. I've watched a lot of basketball. You're watching the NBA and you see a play, and you think, that might work. When you're out there in practice with some of the girls, you might say, 'try this' or 'look at this pass, instead of this.'

"Every coach has their responsibilities. I do scouting of the other teams. Take video. I get film from opponents' games so we can prepare for future games. Help out with practice, with different drills. We take statistics of our own team. We take statistics of our opponents' team. We keep track of time outs, and fouls, and things of that nature."

Kochen said coaching enhanced her quality of life as a student at University of Miami School of Law, and as a lawyer with Allen Norton & Blue--the firm she joined three years ago after...