Club Spotlight: Mock Trial
You have been accused of a crime and you have to defend yourself. Standing at the witness stand, you answer the questions directed at you by a lawyer. Are you innocent? Are you guilty? Only the judges have the final say. Luckily, you will never be truly condemned, since this is Mock Trial. However, that does not mean that the stakes are low. Winning many of these trials last year allowed Exeter’s Mock Trial team to clinch victory in the state championship and travel to Idaho for nationals.
Along with Model United Nations and Debate, Mock Trial is categorized into the class of “academic” clubs. It consists of 30 individuals, hand-picked by its co-heads to handle a court case given by the New Hampshire Bar Association each year. The teams are divided into the prosecution side and the defense side of the case to compete against various schools at the New Hampshire Mock Trial Tournament. This tournament is judged by real lawyers, based off of a point system to determine the winning team. Since all the teams are competing over the same case, the key is to discover different angles of the case and to try to present it as similarly to a real trial as possible.
“We’re hungry, we’re dedicated and we do whatever it takes to improve. Our preparation is certainly grueling, but trials are a battle.”
The competition requires thorough preparation. Thus, mock trial teams meet three times a week for an hour and a half to write their scripts for the examinations and speeches, memorize their court case and practice their speaking skills. During competition season, the club usually meets 10-20 hours a week.The club is split into three teams: A, B and C, based on level of experience. The members within these teams assume the roles of either lawyers or witnesses. Similar to a real trial, a lawyer’s job is to “direct examine” a witness from their own team and decide what questions to ask a witness from the other side during cross examination. They are also in charge of delivering an opening and closing statement. A witness’s job is to prepare for the answers to possible questions asked by the lawyers during the examinations and act appropriately in accordance to the role they are playing.
The current co-heads of the club are Jo de La Bruyere ‘18, Anna Clark ‘18, Joanna Zhang ‘17 and Kaitlyn Kang ‘17. The job of the co-heads is to bring new ideas to the club for improvement and to coach novices. This year, co-head Anna Clark decided to make the club more inclusive by welcoming anyone who is interested in mock trial to the club although the competing teams have limited number of members. “We are trying to keep non-competing members in the loop by organizing bi-weekly Mock Trial skill-building lessons in the mid-winter,” Clark said, “This way, members that tried out to compete but were unable to make the cut have a chance to keep doing an exciting, challenging activity and improve for the next year.”
For upper and A team member Peter O’Keefe, Mock Trial has been an intense intellectual challenge ever since he joined during his prep year. He has to collaborate with other members and work individually to analyze cases thoroughly, while he develops complex arguments for both sides. This also includes having to present these arguments in a clear and concise manner.
Upper Maya Pierce remarked that for her, the most fun in Mock Trial comes from facing other schools at varying levels of difficulty. “I am pretty competitive and going up against other schools is really fun. It’s an intellectual battle between the teams and watching all the hard work you have put in pay off is such a good feeling. Like when someone totally destroys the person they are going up against, we are all so happy and proud.”Upper Aiden Roberts noted that one of his key reasons for doing Mock Trial is how it blends “on-your-feet thinking” with its open-ended nature. Members have the chance to present their arguments however they wish. “We have almost complete creative control in designing our arguments, writing our testimonies and delivering our closings,” Roberts said.
Roberts shared similar sentiments, stating that the level of competition is so high due to the fact that the league advances all the way to the national level. “This makes mock trial challenging and interesting,” he said.
Another special aspect of the club is that everyone starts off at the same point, gaining more experience through their time. “I love mock trial because there is no middle school mock trial,” de La Bruyere said. “We have the chance to start the year with beginners and end it with State champions.”
The need for continuous collaboration within the club is further highlighted by the fact that the original founder and coach of the Academy’s Mock Trial team now lives in California. The co-heads address this issue by acting as advisors and giving advice to the less experienced members of the team.
Clark said, “As a result, we have learned to value each member’s opinion and voice. Instead of handing in drafts of direct examinations to our coach, for example, we bring in a draft to a meeting and listen to the witness and lawyer perform it.”
The outcome of their hard work and preparation amounts to an impressive resume of achievements. The team has more than a few times been granted the “Best Lawyer” and “Best Witness” awards in a competition. A member even received an offer for an internship at a law firm this past summer. On top of that, during four out of the five most recent years, the club has attended the Mock Trial Nationals.
“Last year our team competed at Nationals, despite being a young team,” Clark noted. “As a result, we have 3 members who have attended Nationals, which gave us more experience than we have had in a long time.”
Despite these accomplishments, the Mock Trial team members believe that the club still has room to improve. According to lower Samantha Resnick, attending tournaments is heavily linked to their success in mock trial.
However, last school year, the team was not able to attend the Bulldog Invitational at Yale University due to the lack of money supporting the club. “The tournament would have better prepared us for our next tournament we went to, an invitational hosted by Bishop Guertin,” Resnick said. “This year, the club hopes to be equipped with enough money by the school to attend these vital tournaments.”
Mock Trial is a hardworking and determined club, filled with passionate members. Known as one of the most time-consuming and intense clubs on campus, it holds high respect in the Exeter community.
“Obviously it’s never a given that we’ll win,” said de La Bruyere, “but we’re hungry, we’re dedicated and we do whatever it takes to improve. Our preparation is certainly grueling, but trials are a battle.”