Saturday, March 23, 2024

The Michigan State Mock Trial Competition

As Leah's team had advanced after winning the County finals to the State finals, I drove ugly early this morning to Lansing and the Ingham County Circuit Court Courthouse for the State-level competition.

Leah's team had both a Plaintiff and Defense team and she was on the Varsity Plaintiff team.  Leah gave a great opening, did a solid direct and cross examination and all the kids on her team did a fine job indeed. The Junior Varsity Team also made it to the state finals and did very well too.

We then watched the Varsity Defense side team battle another team's Plaintiff side.

It was a fun fact pattern that had a few annoying holes but was designed to be able to be argued either way.   I believe the fact pattern was weighted a bit towards defense-side but was a fun one to work with, but it had an error regarding one of the exhibits in that it, per the rules of evidence, couldn't be admitted by either side with the way the fact pattern and witnesses were arranged - the fact pattern was missing a witness that could get it admitted.

I had ordered in pizzas for the team so we had that for lunch as we waited for the initial results after the end of the second round.

Unfortunately, both the Varsity and JV team failed to advance to the semi-finals, but I'm very proud of their effort, and that they won the county level and they got this far.

That's the last high school competition for 6 of them as they graduate and go on to bigger and better things.

Darn good bunch of kids.