My Experience with Mock Trial

At the beginning of August, I got a package in the mail from school, detailing my schedule and the available activities for the coming year. Being the semi control freak that I am, I made a list of everything I’d be doing: all the classes I’d be taking, the activities I’d be a part of, and the performing arts I wanted to partake in. At the top of my list, I put Mock Trial.

I joined this activity last year as a junior, but I’d wanted to try it out since I was a freshman. When I finally joined, it was more fun than I’d ever imagined. Mock Trial is just that, a mock trial. Schools all over the place participate in this competition, taking it to a national level. This year, there were around twenty two schools just in the state of Maine.

Last year, the case was a charge of manslaughter. Even though it was my first year, I was picked to portray the defendant herself, and it was such an amazing experience. We spent about two months preparing the trial and then went to the district court house in Portland to compete. Over one weekend we competed on Saturday and advanced in the competition to another round on Sunday. Although we didn’t move on from there, it was an incredibly fun experience and I knew that I’d be doing it senior year.

This year, our case was the same charge of manslaughter, but the circumstances were very different. It involved a teenager texting while driving, who subsequently crashed the car and killed one of the passengers. I was one of the eyewitnesses to the accident, and I was so excited about going to court and fighting for a place in the finals. On our first weekend, we went up against Berwick, who had been to the semi finals the year before. It was more challenging than I’d expected, but it was a healthy competition and we moved on to the second round, which took place the following weekend. In round two, we went up against an equally challenging competitor. Although we did not move on, the experience helped me to learn a lot about the Maine judicial system, and it drew our Mock Trial team close together. It also was a plus to be able to present in the same courtroom used by Maine’s Supreme Court.