This February, College of Charleston sent its mock trial team to the regional competition in Durham, North Carolina. Along with 19 other teams from their region, CofC battled in the courtroom four times, going against mock trial titans such as Duke and Furman. Some of these schools have up to five teams with programs that are so well established that they get upwards of 40 freshmen applicants each year. College of Charleston, on the other hand, was more of a star in a Cinderella story, as there was not even a team to speak of last year.
Nicholas Shalosky (’10), Diversity Fellow at the Charleston School of Law, coached the CofC mock trial team in 2014-2015. The team consisted of seven students—four seniors (Stuart Miller, Frank Martin, Will Price, Nick Sanders), two sophomores (Megan Tiralosi and Emma Del Ray), and one freshman (Carolina Latimer). This group strategically juggled eighteen different roles for the competition. They played both lawyers and witnesses for plaintiff and defense sides of two separate civil cases.
The team learned quite a bit from the experience. Stuart Miller said that, “the CofC mock trial team learned in an early match, there are such things as stupid questions.” Nick Sanders noted, “Given that we were likely the only team who had never competed together before the tournament, the fact that we did so well and held our own against established programs really speaks to the amount of talent and team chemistry we had. Overall, it was great to see a semester of hard work pay off and to just have fun competing for the weekend.” When asked to comment on her experience, Caroline Latimer replied, “I’m sorry but I plead the fifth.” But, it is important to note that she wasn’t silent on the stand, scoring 18/20 and taking home the “All Region Witness” award home for her portrayal as an expert child psychologist.
In preparation for the competition, students became versed in the mock “Midlands” statutes, case laws, and codes. They worked under and sometimes against actual attorneys and law students.
Professor Shalosky noted that he “was very proud of how the team performed. Although we did not receive a bid to move on to the next round of competition, the students did very well for a new team. They went up against two of the top rated teams in the country and split ballots with one of them.”
The team is now recruiting students for the 2015-2016 academic year and will be coached by Charleston Attorney, Paul Dominick, of Nexsen Pruet. To learn more about the program please contact the department’s administrative coordinator, Kristin Wichmann (wichmannkm@cofc.edu).
Written by Senior Political Science Major Frank Martin