Raising the Bar: Supporting the Next Generation Through Mock Trial

In this short feature, Associate Professor of Business Law Anthony McMullen from the University of Central Arkansas joins us to highlight the impact of Arkansas’s high school Mock Trial program. He shares why volunteering, whether as a judge, coach, or mentor, is a meaningful way for legal professionals to give back and help shape the future of the profession. Tune in to learn how you can get involved. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:36

I am excited to be joined today with one of the Bar Association's best volunteers and most dedicated volunteers, Anthony McMullen, who's an associate professor of business law at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway. And he has been a longtime advocate and volunteer for mock trial. In my mind, mock trial is one of the best things that is done in the state and that the Bar Association is involved with because it is certainly giving young potential lawyers an idea of what the law is and why things like rule of law is so important. Anthony, won't you tell us about mock trial and kind of kick us off with what is mock trial and what are we doing in the mock trial space?

SPEAKER_01: 1:32

Well, first of all, thank you, Jamie, for having me here. I enjoy talking about mock trial and promoting the program. So what mock trial is, and specifically high school mock trial, is an opportunity for students to simulate the trial process. Students get a packet of information, which includes a complaint and answer or a criminal information, depending upon whether it's civil or criminal, of course, some pretrial information, jury instructions, witness statements, and a packet of exhibits. And they have a few weeks or months, depending on how much time they spend with it, to boil that information down. and prepare a trial just as if they were lawyers and witnesses in an actual court. I know that the average person is probably familiar with the trial process because it's portrayed in the media so often, but of course what's portrayed in the media is heavily dramatized, and the public doesn't necessarily know how much work goes into making a trial what it is. And so this gives students a very unique opportunity to get some insight as to what this process is and learn more about the judicial branch of government at the same time. Just my personal opinion, the legislative branch and executive branch gets a lot of attention. in education and in the news. Judicial branch, not so much unless there is a major headline or a major case. So this is our opportunity to enhance that education for our students and for the state as well.

SPEAKER_00: 3:33

So each high school student that is involved has a team, how many have to be on the team and how do they start a team?

SPEAKER_01: 3:45

Well, the minimum for a team is six. The maximum for a team is nine. In Arkansas, we allow schools to have up to three teams. So if you are in a larger high school and there is a lot of interest in it, then a school can register multiple teams. But as long as you have six willing students, that's all that you need. For each trial, you have three students that serve as attorneys and you have three students that serve as witnesses. In addition, each school will usually have a teacher that will sponsor the team. And so they'll do all the stuff that a teacher does with any type of extracurricular activity that they do in school. But we also encourage schools and teachers to partner with a lawyer so that they can get some education on some of the finer aspects of trial advocacy. I'll tell you, it's amazing what a lot of teams learn just on their own. But having that guidance from an attorney not only supercharges what that team is able to do, but it also gets the students actually in a conversation with an attorney. And just by virtue of that, schools can learn a little bit about more what that job entails and learn a little bit about the profession as well. And so that's one of the reasons that we encourage schools to partner with an attorney. But that's also one of the reasons that we want members of the Bar Association to seek out schools and to get them on board and hopefully fill the team.

SPEAKER_00: 5:37

All right. So assume you are a bar member who would like to be a coach for a team what does that what is being a coach entail what would they have to do

SPEAKER_01: 5:53

well the nice thing about being a coach is that the coach will work with the teacher coach and they'll basically decide what would be the appropriate amount of coaching to fit the schedule of both the team and the coach when it comes to the teams I've seen a lot of different models for how to do it. When I did mock trial myself in 1997, it was incorporated into the American National Government class that we took. But some schools will incorporate it into their debate and forensics program, and other schools will make it an after-school activity. how much interaction the coach will have may depend upon what model the school has for having a team. But in addition, we all know that lawyers are busy people. And so I've seen successful coaches who were basically on an advisory basis where if the team just had questions, they knew that they had someone reliable that they could call on. But I also know of coaches that are much more involved. They are there at every single meeting, which can sometimes be two or three times a week from the start of when they start preparing the case all the way up to competition, which normally happens in late February or early March. So how much time an attorney coach spends on that really depends upon what their schedule looks like and what the teacher coaches want out of them. I will say that in talking to a lot of teacher coaches, they are willing to take any help that they can get. And most of them are pretty gracious about being mindful of the attorney's time and working around their schedule.

SPEAKER_00: 7:54

Now, the mock trial committee has some big plans for this year. Won't you update us on what we see the mock trial committee planning?

SPEAKER_01: 8:04

Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that we've been working on is getting our numbers up. We know that the more teams that we have in the competition, A, the more exposure that students have to the legal field, which is a plus on itself, but also the more teams we have, just the better the competition is going to be. And then we also want those teams that do compete to feel a bit more comfortable competing with the process and to feel like they have a chance at having some level of success, be it their first or second time there, or be it they being one of our regular participants. So we are in the early stages of hosting a mock trial workshop. This is similar to some of the work that the committee has done in the past with working with various teacher organizations and giving them some tools to be successful in coaching a team. But what we are envisioning is an all-day workshop where students can actually get some formal instruction from legal professionals and actually get some training on how to work a mock trial case. We're still in the early stages. So a lot of what we want to do is in the planning, but we're looking at a Saturday in January. I think the date that we're trying to get is Saturday, January 10th. And we're seeking a location that would either be in Little Rock or Conway.

SPEAKER_00: 9:51

And-

SPEAKER_01: 9:52

Yeah, and we're in the very early stages here. So if there's anyone who has a desire to help teach trial advocacy to young students, and this is something that you find interesting, feel free to contact me or contact Maggie King, who is the current chair of the committee, or Adam Jackson, who is the current vice chair, and we will get you on board.

SPEAKER_00: 10:18

Wonderful. And what else? So if someone... is interested in serving as a coach, whether they have a team or not, what should they do?

SPEAKER_01: 10:26

Well, we recommend one of two things, and that really depends on whether you are in a community that has a program. We do not have a lot of teams in North Central Arkansas, and we do not have a lot of teams south of Little Rock. So if you are a lawyer and you live in any of these communities, I would encourage you to reach out to your local high school and see if there is any interest in starting a mock trial program at that school. Quite frankly, One of the barriers that we often find is that a lot of young programs think that they absolutely positively need an attorney. And while they don't need an attorney, having one that they can consult would definitely be helpful and would encourage some programs. Another thing that you can do is contact the committee directly. Whenever teams register, one of the questions that we also ask is, do they need help finding an attorney coach? And we typically... have about two or three teams every year who say that they would definitely want help finding an attorney coach and so if you get in contact with us in advance and say that you're willing to be a coach then when those registrations start coming in we will be happy to pair you with one of those schools most teams are very comfortable with coaching via zoom these days so Even if you are a lawyer in one corner of the state, you can be of assistance to an attorney in another corner of the state. And let me reemphasize the fact that we have areas of the state where we have very little participation. And I'm hoping that the possibility of being able to receive coaching via Zoom will open up the possibility Well, thank

SPEAKER_00: 12:30

you, Anthony, for telling us all about mock trial. We really appreciate your work in this area. And we appreciate Maggie Davis and Adam Jackson for chairing this year. And we can't wait to help you out. So hopefully we'll get some more coaches. It has always been one of my favorite things to do is to judge the final competition for the state. because these students are incredible their talent is just staggering and frankly their ability to cite the rules is is better than mine off the top of their heads so it's really impressive to watch and I encourage anyone who's who hasn't even hasn't seen this to at least show up for the state championship and watch them because they're really truly engaging and makes you feel really good about the continuity of the legal profession in the years to come.