University Prep’s varsity mock trial team made it to state, but what comes next?

The team starts practices before the case comes out, doing old cases from other states and watching the finals to learn as much as possible. Once the case is out the team jumps into character development, examination writing and memorization for tournaments. The team might come up with an elaborate backstory or decide to fake an accent. Whatever gets more points from the raters, actual lawyers who volunteer to judge the competition. 

The team goes to the district competition, either in King County or venturing to Kitsap to perform the case in the county courthouse with real county judges. 

The Varsity team won districts and will move on to state. What now?

Some junior varsity witnesses have tried out to take the place of Varsity players who may not be free for the state competition. The coaches hosted interviews after districts. According to junior Komathi Anand, the process essentially boiled down to “if we made it to state last year, we get to be on varsity.”

If the team gets first at state, as they did in 2005, they will travel to nationals. The competition is tough, going against the best teams from each county in Washington state on Mar. 24-26.