{"id":3370,"date":"2014-12-03T13:44:44","date_gmt":"2014-12-03T13:44:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2016\/04\/21\/furman-has-built-one-of-the-nations-top-mock-trial-programs\/"},"modified":"2022-09-07T14:45:29","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T18:45:29","slug":"furman-has-built-one-of-the-nations-top-mock-trial-programs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/furman-has-built-one-of-the-nations-top-mock-trial-programs\/","title":{"rendered":"Furman has built one of the nation’s top mock trial programs"},"content":{"rendered":"

So far this fall, the\u00a0Furman mock trial team<\/a>\u00a0has participated in tournaments in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Durham, Elon, Irvine, and Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

The extensive travel and countless hours of participation pay off for Furman Mock Trial, an extraordinarily popular program.<\/p>\n

With 18 straight bids to the American Mock Trial Association\u2019s National Championship Tournament, Furman Mock Trial has become a force in national circles. In 15 of those appearances, the team has finished the season in the top 10 of its division. Despite not winning the title, Furman posted the best overall record at nationals during the 2000-2009 decade; and on more than one occasion two Furman teams have landed in the top 10.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In the driver\u2019s seat from the beginning, mock trial director Dr. Glen Halva-Neubauer recalls early moments in the program\u2019s history. Former Political Science Chair and now Riley Institute Executive Director Don Gordon, and former\u00a0Circuit Judge Joe Watson \u201975 were instrumental in nudging the program forward during the embryonic years, along with strong support from Dean A.V. Huff.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe started this in 1995\u2014I had no idea what I was doing,\u201d says Dr. Halva-Neubauer. But it didn\u2019t take long for the bug to incubate. \u201cAnd once you get the mock trial bug, it\u2019s hard to shake,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Mere rookies, Halva-Neubauer\u2019s mockers somehow snagged a pretty successful season from the get go. \u201cThe first watershed moment for us was 1996 in St. Paul (Minn.). We\u2019re there, we\u2019re upstarts, and we end up in contention for the championship until the last round.\u201d The professor keeps a handful of trophies in his small office. He proudly reaches for the trophy that marks the team\u2019s seventh place finish that inaugural year.<\/p>\n

Currently ranked 11th in the country, Furman continues to build its reputation at elite invitational tournaments while earning high marks for hosting the Bell Tower Tournament (formerly Ney National), a super\u00a0regional AMTA tournament.<\/p>\n

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The season begins with the announcement of the criminal or civil case file in August. Then, after weeks of preparation, schools participate in invitational tournaments in the fall and early spring to ready themselves for 25 regional AMTA-sanctioned tournaments that take place in February.<\/p>\n

In 2014, AMTA included more than 550 mock trial teams from approximately 350 universities and colleges spanning the country. The top teams from each regional tournament advance and compete in the super regionals or Opening Round Championship Series (ORCS) held in March. One hundred and ninety two teams battle it out in the ORCS round, then the top six teams from each ORCS tournament advance to AMTA’s National Championship Tournament in April. Only 48 teams advance and compete in the National Championship Tournament. These 48 teams are divided into two divisions of 24 teams each. The first-place teams from each face off in AMTA’s National Championship Final Round.<\/p>\n

So what does it take to have a booming mock trial program? Dr. Halva-Neubauer says it starts with a crop of bright, articulate, and competitive kids who have superb time management skills and a desire to work with each other in a team environment.<\/p>\n

But he also says students don\u2019t have to fit a particular academic mold to be a part of the team. He reels off majors outside the usual pre-law\/political science suspects\u2014math, history, modern languages, religion, and economics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhat\u2019s great is that our student profile has expanded to include more majors. I love that. It gives us more support around the university, more exposure to faculty . . . mock trial students don\u2019t just go to law school . . . it\u2019s an activity for all comers,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The reality that Furman mock trial draws students from all backgrounds and majors is important for team building. \u201cIt\u2019s an activity that brings a diverse set of people together who would not know each other absent this,\u201d says Halva-Neubauer.<\/p>\n

With all the hours that funnel into mock trial preparation and the weekend-long tournaments, students come away with a stockpile of life skills. Says mock trial coach and Furman alum Brad Rustin \u201903, attorney at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP, \u201cThe biggest change I see in students over time is their level of judgment and maturity. Mock trial teaches you how to compete while remaining civil and respectful of others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coach Lindsay Builder \u201907, also of Nelson Mullins, has witnessed \u201castronomical\u201d growth in students in his four years of coaching. Andrew Mueller \u201914 (Tinley Park, Ill.) started out as a witness in his first two years and transitioned to the program\u2019s top male attorney. Builder says Mueller really took to what the coaches term \u201cMock Trial 2.0,\u201d where they teach students to move beyond the practice of rote memory.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Builder says he unfortunately sees a fair amount of \u201cscripted robots\u201d in mock court settings where trials are little more than \u201corchestrated ballets\u201d with each word memorized and every step choreographed. \u201cWe want our kids to think and act like lawyers\u2014reacting, analyzing the situation, determining on their feet what\u2019s their next move.\u201d Builder says Mueller was particularly good at that, but he was by no means an isolated case. \u201cI could talk about several kids just like him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kaitlyn Pugh \u201917 (Edgefield, S.C.) says, \u201cNot knowing what the other teams are going to do is unnerving at times, but nothing beats the rush you get when you stand up to give a statement or question a witness. Or, if you’re the witness, being on the stand gives you a chance to control the trial.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jordan Brown \u201916 (Gastonia, N.C.) knows what it\u2019s like to think on his feet. Brown, who plans to go to math grad school and teach at the secondary level, says, \u201cTeams can be kind of cutthroat out there and will try to throw you off your game.\u201d He says improvisation and the ability to recover become important skills.<\/p>\n

Brown remembers a round against the University of Virginia at a West Coast tournament last season where the prosecution\u2019s pithy direct examination of a witness left Brown with virtually no cross. \u201cSo I say to myself, \u2018did they really just do that?\u2019 I stand up, and don\u2019t remember what I ask the witness, but it has no resemblance to what I expected to say.\u201d Brown says \u201cwing-it\u201d moments like that happen often, and tackling them with 100 percent confidence is part of the game.<\/p>\n

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Rustin says, \u201cI tell students to have fun, show off, and go 100 miles per hour in the court room.\u201d Sometimes that strategy can get teams into trouble, but it\u2019s good for scoring points with the judges.<\/p>\n

Rustin describes a round in a Washington, D.C., court house in which Kiersty DeGroote \u201914 (Lyman, S.C.), during an entire cross examination of a witness, teetered on chair in her heels and business suit to demonstrate what a witness saw while standing on a stall toilet, peering over the wall. From that point forward, her performance was dubbed the \u201cchair cross,\u201d and Rustin says the \u201cjudges ate it up.\u201d And the infamous \u201cchair cross\u201d became code for pulling out all the stops in the court room.<\/p>\n

The moxie it takes to pull stunts like that, take risks and be vulnerable comes with practice \u201cMock trial is a jealous, time-sucking activity,\u201d says Halva-Neubauer. So in the 10 or more hours a week students and coaches spend studying the case file, preparing opening statements and closing arguments, setting up demonstratives, poring over rules of evidence, and prepping witnesses, there\u2019s no time for petty differences, but lots of time for fostering trust and relationships.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A spirit of mutual respect among coaches and team members allows a safe place to air criticisms. \u201cMock trial teaches you how to give and receive constructive criticism,\u201d says Builder. \u201cThat\u2019s how our teams work.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So far this fall, the\u00a0Furman mock trial team\u00a0has participated in tournaments in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Durham, Elon, Irvine, and Philadelphia. The extensive travel and countless hours of participation pay off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":257,"featured_media":3371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,26,34,3,67,35,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-administrative","category-admission","category-alumni","category-mock-trial","category-parent-news","category-politics-and-international-affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/257"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}