Lack of attorney-coach kills competition season for mock trial

The mock trial team will not participate in the county competition because the school has not been able to find an attorney-coach for the season.

The team will instead participate in scrimmages in January and February. Once scrimmages end, the club will switch into a more relaxed atmosphere in which the officers teach the new members more about the trial process and organize different law-related opportunities. Additionally, rather than hosting tryouts, the club is allowing members to choose what roles they want to learn.

With a late start to the season, mock trial held its first meeting on Oct. 23, in which members discussed and compiled a timeline for the case, People v. Klein. The case focuses on a criminal threat, a false report of emergency and First Amendment rights. For the next meeting, the team plans to choose their roles and begin to prepare for scrimmages..

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Club adviser Matt Torrens admits that functioning without an attorney-coach is not ideal and will hurt the team’s technique, but he said this year also provides several benefits.

“It allows the older students to teach the younger students and allows us to adapt to the workload of the students — which is heavy,” he said. “Another positive is that it’s forced us to look at this year’s case and not rely on our attorney-coach to tell us what to do.”

Junior Christina Xiao, who has played the role of lead attorney,said the largest challenge the team will face this year is competing in scrimmages without coaches.

“Because we’re without an attorney-coach, it’ll be harder to make sure we’re going down the right path,” she said. “We’ll really have to rely on each other to do well.”

Despite this obstacle, both Torrens and Xiao remain confident that being part of mock trial will still be beneficial for students.

“It’ll be a good experience for people who haven’t had much trial experience, because they’ll get to try any position they want and figure out what they’re most comfortable with,” Xiao said. “It’s also a good experience for us leaders because we’ll be doing a lot more teaching, so we’ll have a better grasp on the concepts and how to teach them next year.”