Do you like arguing? What about acting? Coming up with complex ideas? Planning on going to law school? Consider joining Mock Trial! Cornell has had a Mock Trial program for the last 19 years and it’s still going strong. If you’re looking for an activity that will help develop useful skills for the future (helpful for your career, even if it’s not law-related), create lifelong friends, or just looking to have fun, keep reading to learn more about my favorite activity on campus.
Why am I qualified to talk about Cornell’s Mock Trial Team?
I am a current college sophomore in my second year of competing on the Cornell Mock Trial team. I’ve done every part possible in Mock Trial. I’ve played both an expert and a lay witness, as well as all the attorney roles—doing pre-trial, giving an opening statement, and a closing argument. I also help out with local middle and high school Mock Trial programs. I’ve judged for scrimmages and regional tournaments and worked with students at a couple of Mock Trial Boot Camps hosted by our program.
What is Mock Trial?
Mock Trial is quite literally a mock trial. No matter what level of Mock Trial you compete at, some of the core details stay the same. Every team gets the same case to compete with at the beginning of the season. Every other year the case switches between a criminal or civil case. Each case has multiple witness affidavits (a written statement confirmed by oath for use as evidence in court), expert reports, exhibits (a document or other object produced in a court as evidence), and various legal documents.
Each team prepares a case for the prosecution/plaintiff side and the defense side. On both sides, the team prepares an opening statement, three direct examinations (an attorney on their team asks a witness on their team questions), three cross-examinations (an attorney on their team asks a witness on the other team questions), and a closing argument. To really understand what Mock Trial looks like, I recommend you watch a round. There are plenty more resources to help understand Mock Trial on YouTube as well.
Obviously, this is a condensed version of what Mock Trial looks like, so let’s get more in-depth!
Collegiate Mock Trial:
The American Mock Trial Association (AMTA) organizes and runs the Collegiate Mock Trial. There are around 400 programs across 45 states, one territory, and one international school (University of Toronto). There are eight programs from the state of Iowa alone—Cornell is one of those eight! Each year, AMTA releases a case in mid-August for all programs to use until the end of March. In March, AMTA releases a case for Nationals in April.
Every program gets the same case because there are no divisions in collegiate Mock Trial; every program can compete against any other program and there are many opportunities for competitions. From August to February, programs compete at invitations all over the country. Invitations are competitions that universities or colleges host and generally invite around twenty teams to compete at. In February, AMTA begins running regional competitions where the top six teams move on to the next round of competition. After regionals, teams go to the Opening Round Championship Series (ORCS). From there, teams compete for one of the six bids to the National competition. The top 40 teams in the country compete at Nationals.
What does Cornell’s Mock Trial Program look like?
For students not already on the team, Cornell’s Mock Trial program starts in September with tryouts. People sign up for a time slot, read a short monologue in front of the coaches, and finish with a Q&A from current competitors. Generally, the coaches get back to people just a couple of days later. After that, welcome to three practices a week for the rest of the year!
The Mock Trial team practices on Sunday from 1 to 4 PM and on Tuesday and Thursday from 6 to 9 PM. For the first two weeks, only new mockers practice on Tuesdays to work on learning all about Mock Trial. On a Saturday two weeks after tryouts, we have Mock Trial Bootcamp. Bootcamp goes from 9 AM to 6 PM and is for both new and returning members. In the morning, the coaches have you try out different activities to gauge your strengths and weaknesses. During lunch, the coaches get together and put together squads. In the last half of Bootcamp, you get together with your squad and start talking about what case theory you want to run!
What does the rest of the year look like?
The first half of the season is called the “unstacked season” and goes from September to late November. The coaches make three to four squads with somewhere between 6-10 team members; dividing up the returners and new mockers evenly so every new mocker works directly with a returner. Nearly every program in the country does the first half of the season like this. Unstacked season is a time for people to work on building skills, try out new parts, and get comfortable with the case. Plus, we come up with some funny squad names 🙂
Photos in order: “Legalitea”, “Subpoena Colada”, “Sue Nami”, and “Voir Dire Hard”.
The second half of the season is called the “stacked season” and goes from late November to April. This is where the coaches put everyone into squads based on skill—there’s an A, B, and C squad. AMTA requires every program in the country to stack at some point in the season because regionals and ORCS are divided by skill (the level of a team is based on a bunch of different factors that honestly, I don’t even understand). At Cornell, each squad is referred to by the code AMTA assigns at the beginning of the year. Every Cornell squad has the same expectations and an equal amount of coaching.
Photos in order: 1058 at ORCS, 1059 at Regionals, and 1060 at Regionals.
What are the expectations?
Everyone is expected to be at every practice on time and the entire time. Obviously, life gets in the way sometimes so as long as you communicate with coaches about absences 24 hours before practice, you’re okay! There are two roles in Mock Trial: attorney and witness. Attorneys are expected to write a direct with your witness, a cross for one of the other side’s witnesses, and some type of statement (either pre-trial, an open, or a close). Witnesses are expected to write a direct with your attorney and learn your affidavit. Everyone is expected to memorize their parts before the first scrimmage (one of our squads vs another of our squads). Each squad gets to go to three tournaments during the unstacked season, one of which is the tournament we host at Cornell—“King of the Hill”!
Do we do anything aside from practice and go to tournaments?
Of course! Either our coaches plan team bonding activities for us, our social chair for the year plans events, or your team captain will plan something. Some events we’ve done in the past include: squad movie nights, thrifting, an escape room, Mock meals, and more. And if you ever have any ideas about events you want to do with your squad or the team, we have a budget to plan/pay for things!
Does Mock Trial cost anything?
Other than your time? No! I mentioned a budget earlier—that pays for more than just fun bonding events. The Stoll Program and the Atkinson family come together to make a budget for each year. This fund pays for all travel, hotel, and food costs for the entire year. The Cornell Mock Trial Program travels all over the Midwest for tournaments and you don’t have to pay anything to go (aside from any fun purchases you may want to make). Typically, everyone has to purchase some time of formal wear (witnesses wear business casual and attorneys wear suits). We go thrifting at the beginning of the year to find cheap formal wear but if money is a concern for you, our coaches can help fund a solution.
Who can I reach out to for more information?
Cornell hires a full-time Mock Trial coach for our program. His name is Max Handler and you can reach out to him via his email: mhandler@cornellcollege.edu. We also have an assistant coach, Mimi Vukelich, who has been a coach for eight years. Before that, she competed for Cornell’s Mock Trial team for four years! You can reach Mimi at avukelich17@cornellcollege.edu. If you want to talk to students, we have two current Directors of Recruitment: Levi Thompson and yours truly! You can reach us at lthompson27@cornellcollege.edu and debert27@cornellcollege.edu. Don’t be hesitant to reach out—trust me, we all love to yap about Mock Trial (if you couldn’t already tell).
