Verdict is in
Serious game faces, elegant arguments crafted from months of preparation and a verdict.
Participants in the Young Lawyers Division of the Butler County Bar Association's mock trials, staged Tuesday through Thursday at the Butler County Courthouse, were in it to win.
But the students say participation alone tips the scales of justice in their favor.
Christina Dadey, a 10th-grader at Seneca Valley Intermediate School, said she sees political science and law school in her future.
“And I had no idea I wanted to do that until I did mock trial,” said Christina, now a two-time participant.
The competition, sponsored statewide by the Young Lawyers division of the Pennsylvania Bar Association and hosted locally by the Butler County Bar Association, works like this:
In November, students in grades 9 to 12 form teams and are given information about a fictitious case. This year, the facts revolved around a civil trial that scrutinized the role of a high school track coach in the death of a promising athlete who used performance-enhancing drugs.
The teams spent months learning the case. Different students studied to fill the roles of lawyers and witnesses in the courtroom.
Each team tried the case twice, once as the defendant, the high school track coach; and again as the plaintiff, representing the deceased girl's mother.
On the days of the competition, the contest unfolds like a real gavel-to-gavel trial. The teams present prepared opening arguments, then question a series of witnesses before presenting closing statements.
“This is just a different type of thing,” said Denny Loevlie, a junior at Freeport High School.
Denny, who filled the role of a lawyer Wednesday night, said he plans to use the skills he learned in the mock trial in his future endeavors, which include a plan to study environmental science, then law school.While all of the lawyers and witnesses are students, the judges who preside over the mock trials are comfortable in black robes. They're real judges from the Court of Common Pleas and the county's magisterial districts. And the jurors also know their way around a courtroom. Most are lawyers who practice in this county.The biggest difference is the verdict. Instead of picking which case has more merit, the jurors determine a winning team by accumulating the total of points awarded to each participant based of criteria such as poise and clarity.About 300 teams are competing statewide. District level competitions will continue through March with 12 teams advancing to the PBA Statewide Mock Trial Championships March 28 and 29 in Harrisburg.The winner of the state championship will represent Pennsylvania at the national mock trial finals in late spring in Madison, Wis.In Butler County, 10 teams participated from seven school districts: Moniteau, Freeport, Butler, New Castle Area, Wilmington, Lincoln and Seneca Valley.The team with the most points, which now advances from Butler County, is Butler Team 1.But Steve Casker, an attorney from Zelienople who organizes the Butler County leg of the competition, said everyone wins.“The combination of critical thinking and public speaking really prepares students for the challenges they will face in college,” said Casker. “They are light years ahead of where I was when I was their age.”Seneca Valley teacher and mock trial coach Debra McDermott said programs such as the mock trials are important to the education process because, “this is a practical applicability of the skills they learned ... not rote memorization.”In addition to learning public speaking, strategic thinking and teamwork, participants seem to agree with the sentiments of Seneca Valley senior and four-time participant Alex Taylor, “This is very cool.”
