FORT WORTH (1080 KRLD) - Students from a school in Fort Worth have left for Little Rock, Arkansas to argue their case to be named national champions in a mock trial competition. The group from Covenant Classical School has already won regional and state competitions.
Several lawyers and a district court judge have been working with the students.
"They are required to prepare to either present the prosecution or the defense side," says Taylor Rex Robertson, a senior associate at Haynes and Boone. "They practice with three different witnesses, three different lawyers to present either side, which they usually do not find out about until moments before they compete."
"Something we've definitely seen while preparing for nationals is our team really has our process for preparing a case down," says Sophia Foster. "We know our process for preparing a case. We know in our first practice, we're going to talk about case theory, themes and then we'll get our directs written then our statements. Our team knows how we do things."
Foster and other students say that research helps them learn each other's strengths and how to work together quickly to solve a problem. They say they are learning they need to understand all available information so they can adjust to something unexpected a witness might say.
"Our coaches will tell us, 'Memorize all your stuff and then forget it,'" says Ellie Monwai. "You need to know how to go off-script. That's really the mark of when we know our stuff is when we can go off-script."
"You get to cross-examine them on inconsistencies between their statements or inconsistencies between one of their statements and somebody else's statement," says Scott Fredricks, a lawyer with Cantey Hanger. "You use all of that material to try to put together the most compelling case for one side of the trial or the other side."
Asked if they were planning to become lawyers, Foster, Monwai and a third student, Jonathan Fredricks, all said they were not.
"But we'll see," Jonathan Fredricks said. "I've really enjoyed this, so if this is what the job looks like, it's pretty fun."
Fredricks and Foster say they currently plan to study business administration, and they say the skills they are learning from mock trials can help them in business and any professional setting.
"The way we get to interact with the rules of evidence as well as learning how to conduct ourselves professionally," Foster says. "We pay a whole lot of attention to detail."
"We're learning just how to think on our feet," Jonathan Fredricks says. "When somebody gives you an objection you're not expecting, coming up with a way to get around it, I think that's a really valuable skill."
"These are life skills all of them will take with them regardless of whether they become attorneys, the ability to think rationally and quickly," says Josh Burgess, judge for the 352nd District Court in Tarrant County. "I compare mock trial to jazz. You go in with a certain idea of where this is going to go, but then there is a lot of improvisation that happens."
Students from Covenant Classical School will compete in four rounds of arguments at the 2023 National High School Mock Trial Championship in Little Rock. Arguments are taking place at the Pulaski County Courthouse and federal courthouse in Little Rock. A fifth championship round will take place Saturday at the federal courthouse.
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