As the judge walks into the George Allen courthouse this Saturday and reads the instructions, the mock trial team will finally have the opportunity to determine the future of their season. They can either continue their long legacy of success or fall short and have to regroup next year.
“It is a make or break tournament,” Law Magnet director Alexis Stern said.
After winning all judges’ ballots at District, the team moves to Regionals. Because Richardson is in Region 10, the team will be competing against many private schools and several public districts like Dallas, Garland and Plano, which boast high levels of success.
“Really we’ve just been practicing a lot,” junior and captain Ian Miller said. “This stuff isn’t easy, and it takes a lot of practice to get us where we need to be.”
The team faces a unique challenge this year. Like Richardson, teams across the district have lost their senior members, making it difficult to measure how prepared other schools are.
The Dallas BAR association, which provides high schools with cases for the competition, chose the civll case “Campbell Colquitt v Casey Hogg” – a case about cyber bullying.
“Richardson is a team that does better on years that are criminal cases, which are every other year,” Stern said.
This week, the mock trial team has been putting in extra hours to run through their cases and practice their statements.
“We usually practice about 30 hours a week,” junior and captain Vaughn Ollier said. “We are just trying to get prepared as much as possible for Saturday.”
The mock trial team hopes to win it all this saturday and advance to state to continue their legacy.
“We need to work out the kinks and get everything as close to perfect as possible,” Miller said. “It’s really all about presentation, so we will definitely spend a lot of time on that. I think we will do a pretty good job.”