Yesterday morning the students in the law class participated in a mock trial. The purpose of this imitation trial was to allow these particular students the chance to experience first hand what lawyers must do to prepare for court. Twenty-nine randomly selected girls were split in half to defend the state and the defendant. When asked about her opportunity to take part in the trial, Adysson Gerber said, “It was a criminal trial, so we had the state versus the defendant and it was about printing fake IDs.” She further explained the process in which they used to replicate a trial while also making sure everyone knew what they were doing. She claimed that, “We took turns doing the investigation. Someone would give the opening statement and then a different person called up a witness and interviewed the witness.”
Adysson stated that because everyone in the class was still learning the general process, there were lots of objections, but overall it went really well. The teachers of the law class helped the girls run the trial smoothly by giving helpful hints and clues in the direction the trial should go. The packets that each of the girls were given contained information over the step by step trial process, the witness statements, and any other useful information they may have needed to familiarize themselves with before the trial began.
Adysson continued to explain how the court decided on the trial’s verdict, “Information in the packets wasn’t the same for everyone. In the end they found the defendant not guilty because they had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt and because of the missing information in the packets, there was very much doubt.”
This mock trial was an amazing way for the law students to prepare for real world law. As their arguments were not set, they got to see how it would work in a real trial, considering nothing is ever written out exactly as how it will be said in court. They got to experience what questioning a witness was actually like and also dealt with misinformation, all being extremely important aspects of real trials.