Usually walking into a courthouse you picture big, intimidating lawyers standing in front of a jury. Mock trial got to try their hand at being one of those lawyers at their competition March 4 at Johnson County Regional Courthouse. They missed qualifying for State after their last round against SM East. Shawnee Mission Northwest took first place.

The girls participating were senior Joy Knowles, sophomores Maquistin Bell, Katie Schultz, Lexington Link, and  freshmen Arden Larsen, Adelaide Soyski, Dayanara Zamora Mendoza and Kate Herrmann.       

There are four rounds of competition. The first three rounds the team is either the defense or plaintiff. Both sides begin with opening statements and then the plaintiff case starts. They question their witness and then cross examine. Then the defense side takes over. When both sides finish presenting their case there is the closing. The whole process is time consuming.   

The fourth round is power matched, which means each team is paired up with another team of equal ability which is judged on the first three rounds. They present their cases just the same as before. South went against the second place team. Although they lost, the competition was a learning experience.
“We learned a lot. We’ll definitely do better next year, but I’m really sad that we lost,”  Herrmann said.