Park High School of Baltimore County defeated Richard Montgomery High School in MSBA’s Mock Trial championship match on April 15 to win the school’s second state title.
Each year teams of teenagers, under the guidance of attorney coaches and teachers, compete at local courthouses over several weeks and then two schools finish the season with a final match at the Robert C. Murphy Court of Appeals building in Annapolis.
Maryland Court of Appeals Judge Joseph F. Murphy, Jr., who presided over the final match, addressed the students’ future in his closing comments. “I hope some of you, maybe all of you,” Judge Murphy told the students, “will be back here presenting an argument to the Court of Appeals.”
As reported in the April 15, 2011 issue of the Bar Bulletin, the state’s Mock Trial competition began in 1983 and has in that time involved over 48,000 Maryland citizens, a combination of students, teachers, volunteer attorneys and judges. One hundred thirty teams competed this year and an estimation based on that team count sets this year’s number of student participants over 2,000.
With that mighty sample to search through it is time to wonder what crop is reaped for the legal system from Mock Trial?
There is no official record or tracking of participants who go on to receive a Jurist Doctorate. But to find present-day attorneys with a Mock Trial education one has to stay close to the competition because that is what the alumni do.
Sally McMillan Guy participated all four years on Pikesville high school’s team, graduating in 2004. And while a member of the 2011 Mock Trial team at the University of Maryland School of Law (there named the National Trial Team), Guy coached the Baltimore Freedom Academy’s team, which had not operated in three years prior.
Guy said she joined Mock Trial in high school because she enjoyed oral arguments and the team aspect. She also admitted that at the time her career goals were not fixed to law but what she absorbed from the team helped her once she entered law school.
“Only way I would’ve had confidence and any idea how to directly cross-examine is through Mock Trial,” says Guy. “A lot of [the legal practice] is confidence and that comes from going to Baltimore County Circuit courthouse [as a teen] and speaking before a judge.”
Guy, a third-year student, advanced with her two-woman team this year to the National Trial Competition in Houston. She credits her Mock Trial education for her trial performance but also says Mock Trial has broader lessons.
“I think that the [Mock Trial] experience is invaluable for an attorney even if you don’t enter litigation or trial practice,” she continues.
Her trial team faculty advisor, UMD Law professor Jerome “Jerry” Deise, agrees.
“We are not here just to create trial lawyers,” says Deise. “Our goal is to prepare them to be the best lawyer they can be.”
Deise has coached at every level – high school, undergraduate, law school – and sets several objectives for his students, no matter the age. This year, along with advising UMD’s trial team, he started a team at his alma mater, Archbishop Curly high school in Baltimore City.
“First, we want them to be ladies and gentlemen,” Deise says, and then emphasizing knowledge of the rules, the law, and being well-prepared.
Deise, who was admitted to the bar in 1976 and has taught at UMD since 1991, believes these qualities help future attorneys establish confidence within their prospective clients.
The civil case this year for the Mock Trial competition, which is organized by the Citizenship Law-Related Education Program, MSBA’s educational arm, required students to be extremely prepared due to the complexities inherent with a civil case, and simultaneously tested the students’ understanding of responsibility.
“The case was a little more complicated than in my time,” admits Guy. “It’s great to see how it’s grown over the years.”
The case revolved around an underage, drinking-and-driving accident. The family of the victim sued the family of the motorist, though the latter family maintained they were not culpable because their teenage daughter consumed alcohol without their permission or knowledge. “It’s a wonderful competition,” Judge Murphy told the performers. “I hope you got something out of it.”
Deise has a slightly different point of view.
“The competitions are really a bonus,” he says. “The real value is in the preparation and learning.”
But he later admits: “What a valuable experience this is for students. It has done wonders for their self-confidence and poise.”
