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Mock Trial

Nine students in coats standing on the stone steps of a courthouse in winter, with the words Supreme Court of the State of New York cut into the stone behind them.
Exhibit A.On the courthouse steps.
A large group of students in dark suits and winter coats on courthouse steps, some wearing face masks, with other groups gathered behind them by the entrance.
Exhibit B.Outside the courthouse.
A wide line of about twenty-five students standing shoulder to shoulder outside a brick school entrance under a bright winter sky.
Exhibit C.Outside school.

The shape of a round

A mock trial round is a whole trial run small. Two teams argue the same case from the same packet — witness affidavits, exhibits and a set of stipulated facts — one for the prosecution or plaintiff, the other for the defense, in front of a judge who scores what happens in the room.

It runs in a fixed order. Each side opens with a statement of the case it means to prove. The prosecution or plaintiff then calls its witnesses, each taken through direct examination by their own attorney and cross-examined by the other side; the defense calls its witnesses the same way. Each side closes with an argument about what the evidence has shown. Objections can be raised at any point while a witness is being questioned, and the judge rules on every one before the round moves on.

Inside a trial round

Nine students in suits and an adult standing on a red carpet in front of a blue backdrop printed Long Island Mentor Moot Court Competition.
Exhibit D.In front of the backdrop.
A long illuminated banner mounted above a doorway in a lobby, reading Long Island Mentor Moot Court Competition above a row of bar association seals.
Exhibit E.The banner over the doors.