Mock trial team prepares for competition month

The mock trial team is now preparing for its month of competitions, which will begin in early February. The county competition will be held in the Santa Clara courthouse, and the team will participate against schools across the county.

“This next month is the push month,” Junior captain Mx Chang said. “We’ll see how that month plays out and depending on how hard we work, then that will determine our success for the season.”

According to Chang, the team has made significant progress this year due to its significant increase in membership.

“We’re hoping to bring a lot of newcomers to the next level [this season],” Chang said. “All of them are really fantastic.”

Many of these newcomers are underclassmen who have joined a newly founded JV team. Although they compete alongside varsity, they are also preparing for next year, when many of them will join the competing varsity squad.

The case, according to junior Michelle Luo, involves a person convicted of second-degree murder as well as the possession and selling of adderall. To be prepared for competitions, the team has created a script to refer to.

Luo said that each of the members on the team, including pre-trial lawyers, witnesses, defense and prosecution has their own script, although they do not know how other teams will respond.

For the prosecution, the varsity team will use its pre-trial lawyer senior Julianne Wey, its trial lawyers Chang, Luo and senior Kevin Jiang, witnesses senior Charles Li, sophomores Neeki Tahmassebi and Janini Velchamy and junior Anshika Maheshwari. 

For the defense, the pre-trial lawyer is senior Rajan Panchal, the trial lawyers are seniors Sachi Verma, sophomore Karthik Padmandabhan, and freshman Ellen Wu. The witnesses include freshmen Jessy Liu, Jackie Han, and Peter VandeVort, and senior Steven Tran.

According to Luo, the team has improved significantly with the help of the new freshmen, as well as other non-freshman newcomers.

“Right now, we’re cramming for our county competition,” she said. “But we’ve shown incredible improvement and drive throughout the season. Like our coaches have said, we’re trying to learn about the law, have fun, and along the way, maybe get to quarter finals.”