On Jan. 12 and 15, Mock Trial will be competing in their first round of trials at the St. Louis County Courthouses in Clayton. On Oct. 6, the case was released and students started to receive their roles.
“I’m happy with my role, I get to be a lawyer and a witness this year, which is cool,” junior Regan Griffin said.
Every year, the mock trial team has two trials, this year their second being Feb. 10 and 12. If the team wins their competition, they can continue on to regionals and nationals. The students receive two different roles for each trial.
“I just try providing all the resources they need to do their parts, like showing them how to do a direct examination, a cross examination, and opening and things like that,” assistant coach Noah Slaughter said. “Just providing a lot of examples and space to work on their stuff with their partners and their teammates.”
The coaches’ focus on structure and support has helped steady the team, particularly as they move into one of the most difficult stages of the season: creating the teams.
“The toughest thing right now is just making the teams,” Griffin said. “I think everyone is pretty happy with their roles in the end, it was just difficult in the beginning but now that we’re past actually creating the teams, it’s not going to affect us.”
With interest in mock trial growing, the increase in members has also been a setback in trying to determine teams for this year’s trials. Students will be assigned one of the five teams, either defense or prosecution. Many of the members wanted to be a witness, which caused a lack of lawyers, making the teams harder to create. Students have been able to overcome this setback, and are now on track for good trials these upcoming months.
“I think we should hopefully, knock on wood, make it to regionals, just because we have for the last few years,” Griffin said.
