Court Dates

When one hears the words "court dates," it's rather common to think of a teenage crime. This could be underage drinking, trespassing, violating curfew... But when those words sneak into my ears, I think of something completely different. I think of me, in court, arguing for the verdict to be "not guilty."

This may seem a little odd at first, but those arguments are a passion of mine. Last fall, I somewhat reluctantly auditioned for mock trial. Everyone was telling me how easy it was, and how boring it could be. As I briskly walked to the audition, crumpled notes in hand, my thoughts were only negative. "Ugh. I'm wasting my time on something that won't even be fun. I don't know a soul on the team. Why am I doing this?" Luckily, as the days went on and I made the team, my feelings took a complete 180.

I still remember the first trial I was in. As the season was progressing and the coaches were figuring out how to assemble the teams, we all had to participate in a "mock mock trial." I was put on a team with all of the other ninth graders. We spent the days before Skyping, anxiously discussing how we would go up against the kids who had already done this so many times before. The attorneys and I crammed objections into our minds while fighting with our witnesses to memorize their statements. The day of the first trial, I pushed some colorful sticky notes into my already exploding backpack as I hastily ran out the door. My stomach was flopping around all morning. It wasn't until after the trial that I could finally breath. That's when I realized that although I'd felt sick all week, I couldn't sleep the night before, and that I was about to die when giving my closing statement, this was all a lot of fun.

Now zoom past our 3rd place position overall in state and to today. Well, to this year's UEA weekend. It had been a year since my first time experiencing mock trial, and now it was the real deal. Two of our teams were heading out to Denver, Colorado for Providence Cup, a NATIONAL mock trial competition. My FIRST NATIONAL mock trial competition. Even when volunteering to participate, I had a sick feeling in my stomach. I was nervous, and I couldn't control it. Yet all of the stress and sleepless nights that had led up to this trial were just there to boost my adrenaline rush after all four trials.

The two teams in front of the Denver Courthouse.

I remember freaking out in the car about how I would disappoint my team. I was working with an attorney who was two years older than me, had gone to a mock trial camp, was on the second place team last year, and who was extremely intelligent.I was absolutely petrified of screwing up in trial and imprinting a negative image of me in his mind. But through the yellow post-it notes, uncertain objections, and fluid direct examinations of witnesses, I think I held up pretty well. Although I doubted it initially, I had loads of fun on the trip.


I'm extremely pumped for the upcoming season.
We'll be on fire.