“We have determined based on the scores that Cotter won this round!” 

This proclamation elicited screams of happiness from Cotter’s Mock Trial team on February 10th, as they just qualified for the State tournament to be held on March 3 and 4.  

Mock Trial is an extracurricular activity for high school and college students, it is administered by the Minnesota Bar Association.  While teaching students the inner workings of our legal system it also includes elements of speech, debate, and theater. It has been a Minnesota high school activity since the early 1990s and Cotter’s first competed in 2017. This year Cotter has won 3 of the 4 trials it has participated in.

Evan Howard, Cotter Social Studies teacher, has been the program’s leader since its inception at Cotter.

“I first joined my college mock trial team and learned about it over my four years at Saint John’s.  Once I started teaching at Cotter, I wanted to see if we could get a team going for the school, so we began the program my second year at Cotter,” Mr. Howard said.

Each fall competing schools are given a casebook that presents information on a fictional case, this year’s case “The State of Minnesota vs. Taylor Blair” is a theft by swindle case where a business owner is accused of misappropriating funds for his personal benefit. The coaches must assign roles, as team members are either attorneys or witnesses, and then the team must split up and prepare both a prosecution and a defense.

“It is a lot of fun, but also a lot of work. We get the case in October, and we usually have to read and study the materials. Then we gather together every week to discuss it,” senior Stefani Cardenas said.

Typically, the teams would meet face to face in a courtroom setting, but, due to the pandemic, this year the trials have been held by Zoom.  The team members still dress as professionals and must work diligently to prepare their roles.

Mr. Howard brought in first year English teacher Paul Schmitt as an assistant coach. 

 “Mr.Howard thought that I, as an English teacher, would be able to help students craft the “narrative” of our team’s cases, ” Mr.Schmitt said.

The coaches assign roles for Mock Trial through a combination of a student preference and their perceptions of good fits and team member experience. They help students understand the rules of the mock trial competition and the laws and regulations for court proceedings as well.

 “We provide feedback on speaking and performance, as well as written opening statements, closing arguments, and lines of questioning. As for conflicts, we are lucky to have a team that gets along quite well and can communicate effectively what each teammate needs to succeed,” Mr. Schmitt said.

 Mock Trial is more than just a “nice thing to have for a college application”, as the students gain skills that are useful in the real life. “It’s evident that students get to develop a lot of really helpful and flexible skills from the Mock Trial, beyond just learning about how court proceedings work, ” Mr. Schmitt said.

“This is a really challenging activity.  It forces students to be very active in thinking on their feet and think abstractly, both about the materials in the case, but also with legal arguments and case theories.  It asks students to be creative and adaptive,” Mr. Howard added.

 Students are challenged to be detail-oriented as well as think of the “big picture” of court cases. They also get to hone their argumentation, critical thinking, logic, rhetoric, and even acting skills. potentially building skills fundamental for a career in law. However,  mock trial provides an opportunity to develop skills that are relevant to any life trajectory, and for this reason, there is such a big demand for this extracurricular. 

The team is open to all, though there are a limited number of roles available and this year’s team has a nice mix of experience and newcomers.

” Anyone can join! Fun fact, Tomas actually joined in the middle of the season,” senior Alessia VelaNitti explained

After all the hard work that they need to put into this, they are ready for a competition, where three student attorneys question the witnesses during the trial. For each performance, a specific score is given and based on that, the winners are being determined.  Also the team is assigned to be either prosecution or defense at a given trial. 

“We started at the beginning of January, by having a prosecution trial, but then it got kind of crazy and really abnormal because we had next four trials all defense,” – senior prosecuting attorney Alison French said.

Cotter’s team for this season is represented by the following people:

Defense attorneys – Alisia Hull, Mary Row, Olivia Moore

Defense witnesses – Maddie Lemmer, Tomas Castillo, Sophia Carlson

Prosecuting attorneys – Alison French, Alessia-Nitti, Mary Moore

Prosecution witnesses – Stefani Cardenas, Afton Mueller, Lily Olstad

Attorneys and witnesses from Cotter were excellent during their last Mock Trial meet, as their improvisation techniques and memorization skills helped them to reach the victory of winning the regional championship and continuing to the State meet, which was a bit unexpected as they were one of the lower ranked teams in the section.

“It was a bit surprising, but  great to advance. We were the bottom to qualify for regionals and beat the #1 ranked, undefeated team,” senior defense attorney Alisia Hull said.

Some  team members joined because they see themselves as future lawyers, others heard about it during class, but some were just convinced by their friends. Nonetheless, they have all became close friends as they have to spend so much time together. They meet every Wednesday  for practice to work on the case, they also meet in small groups and study on their own to learn their role and find the nuances in the case. Students are not afraid of helping each other and the teamwork they have developed has been a key to their success.

Olivia Moore is a junior who is in her second year of Mock Trial. Her role is as an attorney for the prosecution.

“I guess I joined because I like winning arguments and proving people wrong,” Moore said with a laugh. “I also really like learning about the legal process and digging into the case, knowing that the outcome might turn on a single sentence.”

“I am a witness for the prosecution,” Lily Olstad said. She is in her first year on the team. “The case revolves around theft by swindle and a character named Taylor Blair is accused of using company funds for his benefit, specifically buying a new truck for himself,” Olstad said. “I had to focus on the case for a long time, I wanted make sure that I can play my role the best that I can get it.  As a team, we prepare in class, but we also need to prepare at home. Also, our biggest challenge was probably making our prosecution stronger and better.”

As they approach the State competition they have been meeting almost every day.

“It’s a busy time of year, with spring break falling immediately after our State tournament,” Mr. Schmitt said.

However, the team members have been putting in a lot of work individually, in small groups, and as an entire team to really polish up their roles and team arguments. The decision to hold the tournament by Zoom is a bit of a mixed blessing.

“It would have been fun to have the trial at the Stearns county courthouse, but we are used to doing trials by Zoom now,” Moore said.

“As a first-year coach, I’m learning the ropes just like our new student members. I’m grateful to get to see gears turning in student minds to “crack the case.” And as a shameless plug, I would encourage any Cotter student with an interest in the US legal system, rhetoric, debate, or acting to reach out to me or Mr. Howard to ask about joining the team next year. We will be graduating six senior team members this year, so there are big shoes to fill,”  Mr.Schmitt said.

The State format is 16 teams of schools of all sizes compete in three round robin rounds and the teams that emerge undefeated from those rounds will compete in a 4th championship round.