Joining the team

There is no address up for the team yet.

The case packet

Everything a team argues from arrives in one case packet, published by the competition before the season: the charge or the complaint, a set of stipulated facts both sides accept, an affidavit for every witness, the exhibits, and the rules of evidence the round will be run under. Both sides get exactly the same packet.

Reading it is where every round starts. Attorneys read it for the theory of the case — the one story the evidence supports — and for every line a witness can be held to. Witnesses read it for the person they are about to become. By the time a case has been argued a few times, everyone on a team knows it nearly by heart.

A wide line of about twenty-five students standing shoulder to shoulder outside a brick school entrance under a bright winter sky. — Exhibit A.Outside school.

Students seated around a long wooden table in a dimly lit restaurant, looking up at the camera over shared plates. — Exhibit B.Around the table.