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By the Juris Education Interview Team
Kayla Coniglio and Jamie Dickens are the President and Co-President of the UCCS Mock Trial Team, run by the American Mock Trial Association.
The typical format of a mock trial competition copies that of a real trial. The case that is given to the teams is either criminal or civil; it switches every year. The trial starts with both the plaintiff/prosecution and the defense offering their opening statements. After this, three witnesses from the plaintiff/prosecution go, and then three witnesses from the defense go. When a witness goes, they are given a direct examination from the attorney on their team and a cross-examination from the attorney on the opposing team. After both sides go through all of their witnesses, they both give their closing arguments. This is a timed competition and both sides each get 15 minutes to complete their opening statements and their closing arguments. Meaning that if the person who is giving the opening statement goes over their scheduled time, then the person giving their closing argument has to be less detailed/skip over some of the things that occurred during the trial. Witness examinations also have a time limit, with each team getting 25 minutes for all three of their direct examinations and all three of their cross-examinations. If a team goes over their allotted time, the timekeepers, there’s one for both teams, are required to stand up and yell “stop”/”time”. Throughout both direct and cross-examinations, the opposing team is allowed, and encouraged, to make objections to the testimony/questions. As our team only competes in Mock Trial competitions, we are unaware of the format of Moot Court competitions.
One of the largest takeaways/real-world benefits of participating in Mock Trial is the ability to think on one's feet.
The ability to think on one’s feet is taught through objection battles for attorneys and cross-examination for witnesses and attorneys. Objections that were unplanned for can be made and the response that you might get to an objection might not be the response that you prepared for. This results in attorneys having to quickly come up with a response to defend the testimony of their witness or their objection. With cross-examination, witnesses might be asked a question about a topic that they did not think would be brought up and attorneys might get an answer that they were not anticipating. Mock Trial also teaches us how to think on our feet because everything needs to be memorized before competition. The stress/adrenaline of the competition can lead to people forgetting their lines or planned responses, so they have to think of a new one on the spot without looking like they were thrown off by what just happened.
Second is time management.
Since Mock Trial is a timed event, people need to know how much time they are taking up and how much time their other team members need. This results in people getting better with time management. There is also a lot of work that goes into Mock Trial and people have to be able to get all of it done in addition to their other assignments. It teaches us how to plan our schedules and manage our time.
Third is keeping one’s composure.
Keeping our composure is extremely important throughout Mock Trial. A judge might rule in an unexpected way and attorneys cannot act upset about it. There are also judges who will rule weirdly just to make sure that we are able to maintain our composure or to see how we will handle something unplanned. Witnesses/attorneys can also make mistakes and when something goes wrong, we have to be able to keep our composure and keep moving forward. An opposing team member could play a witness in a way that we do not, and that can be funny, odd, or annoying, and the attorney who is performing their cross-examination has to stay calm and not have much of a reaction to it. Professionalism is the name of the game and losing your cool in a way that is unprofessional can result in lost points. That being said, if a witness is extremely funny or designed to be a jokester, then laughing a little is not that big of a deal as long as you can keep going with your role as an attorney.
Fourth is making changes in a moment's notice.
Making changes out of nowhere can come from a few different places. There are some witnesses that can be called to testify by both the plaintiff/prosecution and the defense. If you are planning on calling a witness but the other team calls them first, you have to have a backup witness that you can call and you have to be prepared to fit them into your case. Additionally, a judge can sustain an objection and say that you have to move on in the middle of extremely important testimony and you have to follow their orders while still figuring out a way to get that information in.
All of these skills are extremely important in the real world, even if someone is not planning on becoming an attorney and I think that it is part of what makes Mock Trial so beneficial. It can have takeaways that influence multiple parts of someone’s life and is accessible to anyone, no matter what their passions are, there is still a place for them on the team or a witness role that suits their interests.
One of the most challenging aspects of competing in Mock Trial is being able to maintain your composure when things don't go according to plan. There will always be an outcome that you or your team didn't prepare for, so being able to control your body language and facial expressions is one of the most important skills that a judge will always notice. Another challenging aspect is the time component. You could have everything timed exactly how it needs to be, and then one person talks for way longer than they need to or goes over time and now everyone has to scramble to cut time from their roles without any time to prepare. However, one of the most rewarding aspects is seeing all of your team's preparation pay off. Being able to outmaneuver your opponent and throw them off instead is one of the best feelings.
Mock Trial helps students feel prepared for a career in law by giving them a taste of what it will feel like as a career. You can walk into a courtroom feeling entirely confident in your case, and then your opponent will bring in a piece of evidence that you skipped over or that you thought was unimportant and it ends up blowing your entire case up. A witness can also forget about extremely crucial detail(s), skip over an event, or a bad fact can be brought out on cross examination. You then have to make changes to your case to make up for it. This mirrors how it would be in real life, where things will not go entirely according to plan. It helps you learn how to deal with it when the stakes are low so that you are more prepared for the real deal. There are also a lot of things to look at before competition. There are the witness affidavits, case law, exhibits, jury instructions, and stipulations. You have to get good at reviewing them and piecing together how they will help or harm your case. These are things that people will have to deal with if they are a paralegal or are involved in law as a career, even if they are not attorneys.
In order to make the most of your time in Mock Trial, it's important that you're willing to step out of your comfort zone and commit your time to it. The best practice you can get is from pushing yourself to do things you're not comfortable with and learning to be ok with failing or being wrong. Doing the best you can also means taking your own personal time to practice and study; whether it be for the case file, objections, or rules of evidence, it is a commitment. You also have to be flexible. You might not get the role that you want, or your witness/attorney could get sick and you have to take on their role in the moment. When you have less time than you prepared for, you have to cut out questions and figure out what to drop/what is the least important to your case. You cannot be married to your script because you might not get the objection you prepared for or you might not get asked that cross question and you cannot sit in silence waiting for the opposing team to make that move.
The advice that I would give to people who are trying to find the right mock trial competition for them is to be willing to try new things. The best way to figure out what is right for them is to try out a bunch of different things. Both civil and criminal cases have the same layout, but they can feel completely different. Additionally, being an attorney feels different than being a lay/fact witness, and they both feel different than being an expert witness. By trying different roles at different times, people are able to figure out what is right/best for them.
Juris Education is proud to interview experts like Kayla Coniglio and Jamie Dickens to help future lawyers understand the benefits of extracurricular involvement in college. Learn more about how our experts can help you get into law school today.
