By Kaitlin Candelaria
The football team isn’t the only group at Spain Park High School with an impressive record this year.
Students from the high school’s Law Academy recently competed at the YMCA Youth Judicial Mock Trial Tournament in Montgomery to defend their three-year streak as the best overall team in competition. Although they didn’t leave with a fourth victory in that division, the team excelled, leaving with an overall second-place rating. It placed first in best prosecution in the major league awards, and it placed third in best defense in the premiere, or first-time competitors, league awards.
But according to directors Craig Thompson and Libby Day, the program is about much more than winning – although they’re pretty good at that too.
“It’s not necessarily about ending up in law school,” Day said. “We teach them a lot of life skills like reading, writing and public speaking and how to apply those things in everyday life.”
The state competition also came on the heels of the Empire Mock Trial competition in New York in October. The competition is one of three hosted throughout the United States.
To be chosen to compete, Day and Thompson, along with their other faculty member, Phillip Pate, must fill out applications and submit essays. Those documents, in conjunction with essays completed by their students and the academy’s past competition history and placement, form the basis for how teams are chosen.
“New York is considered the World Championship,” Day said. “The Atlanta and San Francisco competitions are less competitive but with the same case materials. Their goal is to provide more students with the opportunity to compete on a national level.” Only 40 groups from around the world are invited each year. This was Spain Park’s fifth year competing.
The students are given a case that usually reflects a contemporary issue – this year’s case involved a police shooting of an African-American student – and are given three months to sift through 150 pages of documents and information to build a case.
“One of the most important things (mock trial) does for people is that it allows them to see both sides,” said Mahaa Mahmood, a senior in the program. She said that going into the case for this year’s Empire Mock Trial competition, she thought she knew exactly which side she would be on. However, after she was placed on the defense instead of the prosecution, she was forced to look at things in a different light.
“Before I started this case, I didn’t even care to look at the other side,” she said. “I can now look at both sides without feeling the need to choose one or the other.”
From Philosophy to Prosecution
Day, Thompson and Pate begin recruiting students for the program while they’re still in middle school. The program, which is similar to a four-year-long elective class, first starts students in Thompson’s philosophy and ethics course. The students then move on to Pate’s American jurisprudence class in their sophomore year. In this class, the students take an in-depth look at the documents that form the basis for the society, government and legal documents for the U.S.
After completing Pate’s class, students then move on to Day’s classes, which include civil and criminal law for the junior class, and practicum, which is described as an interactive law experience, for the senior class.
Thompson started the program in 2007 and all three say they have seen massive growth in the program.
“They told us vaguely at the beginning that it was supposed to be like a school within a school, so we’ve tried to do that,” Thompson said. “It’s like a family. They’re spending four years competing together, traveling together and the nature of the class is very discussion-oriented, so it’s a good vehicle to express ideas and opinions. It’s interesting to see their personal growth and how their ideas grow and evolve.”
Some students, like Mahmood, say they were drawn to the academy because they had an interest in law. Others chose it based on advice from upperclassmen.
“I was really intrigued by the idea of mock trial,” junior Skyhler Schaffer said. “I talked to some upper classman and they really helped me and gave me an idea of what it would be like to join this program and I’m happy I did. I’m not sure what I want to be when I grow up, but there are a lot of professions where I’ll need things I’ve learned here like knowing how to speak your opinion.”
Senior Bailey Whetter, who was one of 10 students chosen as an outstanding attorney at the Empire Mock Trial competition, said she’s learned that it’s OK to disagree.
“It’s helped me to not only speak my opinion, but to respect the opinions of other people,” she said. “You can agree to disagree but still be able to voice your opinion in a polite way.”
Thompson said that the students at Spain Park are fortunate to have the law academy offered as a class program, because many other schools treat it as a club.
“They have to do it outside of school hours, so we’re very fortunate,” he said. “A lot of what we’re teaching fits in the curriculum stuff the schools want to do. The students have to collaborate on written stuff, they learn the ability to work on a team with people who aren’t necessarily your friends, to deal with adversity and think on their feet.”
The academy doesn’t just focus on mock trial. The students also learn about and compete in model legislature and mock congressional hearings. They’ve won numerous awards and honors across all three topics. Some of the students have even gone on to become lawyers in their professional lives.
“When it first started, the idea behind it was teaching critical thinking,” Thompson said. “Now, we’ve added to that with public speaking and writing, which we feel are definitely skills that are useful in the field of law, but are skills that aren’t only useful in the skill of law. They’re transferrable everywhere.”