Pretending isn’t just reserved for theatre students at NC State.
The Mock Trial Team competed in a regional competition late February that feeds into the national competition. There were 20 schools present at the regional competition, which took place at the Durham County Courthouse and was hosted by UNC-Chapel Hill.
The Mock Trial Team began five years ago to educate students on the importance of trial advocacy in a courtroom. Though it did well at the regional tournament this year, team president and junior in political science Aaron Vodicka would like to see further progress next time around.
“My goal in the long run is to make it past the regional tournament and make it to the opening round of the championship, because that is considered part of the national tournament,” Vodicka said.
At the beginning of the year, the team receives a packet from the American Mock Trial Association that contains the case information it will be using for their imitation court case. The team receives all of the information it would get if it were preparing for a real trial—the affidavit of different people involved in the case, the rules and different kinds of evidence.
“I think it is loosely based on a real case,” Alex Fleming, Mock Trial Team member and senior studying history, said. “This year it was about two kids playing with a gun and the gun ended up going off and killing one of the kids. We assign different roles, they can be a witness or an attorney, then we go to competitions and compete with other teams.”
The competing teams must prepare for both the defense and prosecuting sides of the case and must perform for four rounds with two judges per round. The team this year won its first trial and walked away with two rounds won. Though the team has done well so far, there are challenges that come with competing.
“The challenges I can think of are things like how do you prepare a case, and how do you make an argument of something that you were just given,” Fleming said. “You read all these facts and all this data and you have to figure out how do you make a case upon that. Also, being consistent in mock trials and creating a theme throughout your case.”
Vodicka also said that there is a problem figuring out how to recruit students. The team is done meeting for this year and will open up tryouts next fall using the same case it used in the regionals this year.
“We haven’t established our recruiting practice quite yet and so that is something we have had to figure out year to year so far, and then the organization of it—having to find a room for everyone to meet in to figuring out when everybody can meet, and figuring out what AMTA requires of us,” Vodicka said.
Though there may be organizational problems to tackle throughout the year, the team concentrates primarily on the presentation of their case.
“It is kind of like competitive, elaborate story telling— we are given all this random stuff and have to figure out how do we make something out of this. I think that is one of the biggest challenges,” Fleming said.
For all the challenges the Mock Trial Team presents, the rewards are plenty. Fleming and Vodicka agree the team gives participants a chance to practice a range of skills. Vodicka, who plans to take the LSAT this September, finds the team to be good practice for law school seeing as he will have to do mock trials there as well.
“I usually tell people it’s really the only place where you can get actual trial experience as an undergraduate student,” Vodicka said.
Fleming notes that while the team does provide practice for those intending to go to law school, it does have other benefits. The Mock Trial Team allows students to practice public speaking, learn about the law and learn to think on their feet.
“Almost everybody joins because they want to eventually go to law school. This definitely changed my mind on law school— obviously in good ways. I just feel I wasn’t the best at it and that it wasn’t for me,” Fleming said.
Fleming joined the Mock Trial Team last year and found that she did not want to go to law school, but decided to continue with the team. Fleming said that the Mock Trial Team allowed her to think outside of the box more and develop her teamwork skills.
