Ep 140 | Mock Trial: More than a trial run at a law career

SPEAKER_03 0:00

We had a student who he was a quiet student and all of a sudden at our last week on, he just got fiery and was like talking louder and objecting and asking these cross-examination questions.

SPEAKER_02 0:15

I looked at his mom. She was sitting next to me. I was like, what did you feed him for breakfast? Who is this kid?

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Welcome to the Voices United in Education podcast. Each week we showcase the teachers, administrators, and community members who go the extra mile to contribute to the success of every student in Escambi County. You'll meet the real people behind the titles and learn about the amazing resources to support every student's success. Every parent wants their kid to be able to think and communicate critically with coherence and confidence. But in a world where AI can answer all our questions and social media algorithms show us more of what we already believe, where does a parent begin? My next guests are not only working to make the seemingly impossible possible, but are themselves products of the program behind this mission. We're talking about mock trial. One is the instructional coach at Pensacola High School and mock trial sponsor, while the other is a community lawyer and mock trial coach. Today they're going to share how mock trial benefits students on and off the law career path and the skills it cultivates. Building up kids and critical thinking, developing skills and holding debates, panhandle locals, Lisette Guttery and Stephanie White. Thanks, ladies, for being here. So the two of you competed in mock trial, not just at the same time frame, but you actually competed against each other.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Yes, we did. Yes, we were we were competing high schools. I was a lead witness, and I believe you were I was an attorney. She was an attorney. So yeah, we both competed at the state level back in 1998.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

1999. I love that. And Stephanie, now you're an attorney. I'm an attorney. So how did mock trial help you decide that was definitely the path for you?

SPEAKER_03 2:09

I loved mock trial when I did it in pick PHS. I actually was at Pensacole High School where I'm a coach now as well. And so I had some great coaches. Russell Van Sickle, who's still an attorney at Begs and Lane, was one of our coaches. And he just instilled in me the passion for law. I was on the mock trial team for all four years. And I knew when I finished PHS, I wanted to go to law school for once I graduated college.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

So did your experience at mock trial set you up in a practical way at all to be ready for law school?

SPEAKER_03 2:40

Well, it taught me confidence and taught me public speaking. Law school unfortunately doesn't really teach you much about actually being a real lawyer. You learn in law school how to think critically, which is what we do as a lawyer and how to research and how to write. But most classes don't teach you the actual public speaking skills and to write direct questions and to cross-examine witnesses at law school. You normally don't lose like learn that in maybe your third year.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

But so this look you're seeing on my face right now is shocked. I know. Because I'm thinking, wait a minute, this sounds really important.

SPEAKER_03 3:14

It is important, but but law school was more teaching you how to think critically. That's why a lot of people who even don't even become lawyers, they go to law school just to learn to think critically, how to research and how to write well. It's very odd, but this is what law school does. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

I am blown away. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

This is a whole new turn, huh? And that's kind of one of the jokes that we have is that with mock trial, they get to try on the career before they make that choice. And so we, as two different careers, get to kind of show the sides of what that career entails. And they get to kind of slip into a character or that role, that attorney role, and to see is this something that they want to do. And so even though I didn't necessarily go into the legal path, I still use those same critical thinking skills and I still use those abilities to create the ideas and the responses and the retorts, you know, with back and forth, even if it's not necessarily in a legal setting. So even though I was a lead witness, I had to look at the details and the exhibits and how that story was going to come across, whereas she had to learn how to pull those stories out of me, you know, as the opponent. So the students kind of get a little bit of both sides.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

So Lisa, did you think that you wanted to go into law and then you joined mock trial and you were like, ooh, just kidding.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

No, actually, I never really had an interest in law. I actually did go on to take the LSAT and be accepted. And I I uh chose the education path instead. But I I had a taste for it, even though I never necessarily wanted to be a courtroom lawyer. I, as Stephanie said, enjoyed the critical thinking side of it, which I think is what always attracted me to the legal side and fuels my passion for mock trial, because we both take different approaches when it, even when it comes to the team, where I'm looking at the character and the connotation of their words instead of saying I dropped out of school, saying I withdrew from school. You know, the characters could how they their verbiage can change a whole direction of the case. So I'm looking at and she's looking at it, like, are the questions in order? Are you getting the information where I can work with the students on more of a verbal basis and seeing how they can create those kind of stories? I mean, those are high-level communication skills.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Very much so. But I'm just kind of still a little shell-shocked that like high school you was like, you know what I need? Critical thinking. I I just feel like the average, maybe this is the stereotype. Maybe I need corrected, but I feel like the kids would be like, you know what I like to do? Argue.

SPEAKER_03 5:51

Well, they do like to argue. And so I think that's what draws the kids. Also, their friends, as we all know, kids at this age want to be around their friends. So they're get their friends involved, but they like to argue. So in the mock trial, you you get a packet, about a hundred pages of a story of a case, and then there's affidavits of we had six different witnesses who affidavit, and they have to come up with the questions that they want to ask, and they have to present a side, either a prosecution side or a defense side, and they have to come up with questions to ask these witnesses. And so some of the witnesses are great actors, and so we pull some people from our theater department at PHS to be our witnesses.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

And the cases are not written for a clear winner. So the skill, the the winning team actually comes from the skill as this case is being presented. There's no clear winner from the beginning. It's anybody's game from the beginning. So it's really who is the best thinker, who is the best talker, who has the best schemer. It really goes fully on the shoulders of the students as to how they present the case, how they ask the questions, how they respond to the questions. So, really, I mean, it you never know. You net you absolutely never know.

SPEAKER_03 7:07

And what's so fun is so when we go to the competition, like we had this year, our it was a it was an artist in a forgery case. And so a stolen painting. So our prosecution came up for the and called the defendant a con artist. But it was fun when you went to the actual competition to see what West Florida High School or Navarre High School, what their prosecution called the defendant, or what their defendant said, Well, I didn't do this, I forgot what our defense theory was. Oh, the chess. Oh, it was a game of chess, and you know, we've been pawned and all this stuff. So it was really fun.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

It's really creative. I mean, that is creative communication. Like, I just really didn't think of those skill sets entering this space. I I'm really uh curious what students are interested in legally with the uptick in the popularity of true crime. Have you seen that influence your students at all?

SPEAKER_01 8:05

I don't necessarily see as much with that. The cases revolve, they flip-flop every year. It's a criminal and then a civil case, a criminal and a civil case back and forth. Of course, the criminal cases are always more fun. Several years ago, we did have one where we did have a character pass away after a suspicious break cutting incident. And, you know, we had to go back and forth. So yeah, they're definitely probably more interesting. There's more draw on those kind of cases. Well, but last year was the AI case. Yes, last year was a college student being expelled from school due to using AI, and that pulled a lot of interest because it was so close to home for some students. And there's always some carryover from year to year. That the this year the painting was the Chapel Rowan. So there's always some little Easter eggs in the case for the students who find funny. Palm Coast University is always the made-up university that they use. The case is always written by the Florida Justice System down at Florida Southern University. So they take a lot of time and effort to write the cases, and there's pieces of evidence, so there'll be pictures and everything. And they have a lot of college students kind of put effort into it. So one of my students last year graduated and is now down at Florida Southern University and is hoping to intern in the next couple of years, even though he does not wish to go to law school. He actually wants to be an English teacher to come back and work for me. Oh my God. Very excited about that. But he will be he will be working to help write the case, hopefully, in the next couple of years. So that was a really cool internship. He got to meet the writers and the creators last year as a senior and say, hey, I will be attending your university. And in the next couple of years, I would really like to help write the cases for the future teams. Wow, how full circle is that.

SPEAKER_03 9:44

And one thing I was gonna add is that it's a great community too. So, you know, it not only is it our school system who's doing a great thing for our students by providing this, but also the whole community gets involved. So University of West Florida has a pre-competition, Dr. Penrod. Dr. Penrod does that. He puts it on for all the schools. It goes to the Scamby County Bar Association, Sierra Bar, and they help put it on. So they get actual judges who are real life judges to come judge a competition in the courtroom. And they have attorneys who are the jury. And so it's a full-on like community effort, which is really neat for the students to see.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Yeah, and they get to actually go in a real live working courtroom and and realize witness stands and to be up there and to realize if they rock in their chair, how distracting it is and get to and they have to stand up in front of it.

SPEAKER_03 10:30

When the judge walks in, when every time they talk to the judge, they must stand up. And so they learn all the courtroom etiquette.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

And when they compete, we cannot talk to them. They are their own team. Whereas, you know, when you're coaching football, you can be on the sidelines and say, go further or catch this. That you can't do that in mock trial. They become their own entity, they have to become their own unit. And I think that's probably one of my favorite things about it is the students have to become their own team and they have to work together. And if, you know, we we can be sitting in the back going, man, I would object to that. And we can't say that. They have to elbow each other and say, hey, hey, object this, you know, and they have to be ready for it. So, and they that's the card of the part of the competition. I think that is their favorite, the lawyers at least, is you know, finding the the things that they can poke holes in the other team's case and being able to object to them and to be their own law and order show.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Exactly. And this brings a whole new perspective to competition because when we think of high school and we think of competition, automatically we think of sports. But how cool that this is a different way to compete and that also aids in their development at you know, their social development, their brain development, their thought processes, the way that they interpret the world in more of a macro, and then then they can go back to that micro and both are helpful. And every team is different.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

We never play, even we could play the same team and flip sides, and it can be a totally different round, a totally different feel. And I would say our students are actually friends with students from other schools, and they're very funny. They they don't share their their inner secrets when it comes to our our uh you know, our themes or anything like that, but they do talk about and they become friends when they go on to colleges, and a lot of them have gone on to similar schools or to be on teams together in college. How has mock trial changed over the years? When we competed, it was so small. It was we were in the infancy, probably the first couple of years of its development. It was the mid-90s, is when it started. So we were probably in the first, you know, five-ish years of it. And it used to be every county would send a team to state because there were so few circuits. Now we are a full circuit, which is an actual law circuit. Yeah, it's a first circuit.

SPEAKER_03 12:46

So it's a Scambia, Santa Rosa, Oakaloosa, and Walton.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

So we have schools that all the way, you know, from those four counties that pull together and we compete, and now we only send one team from our circuit. So it has become much more competitive. Whereas I was a Santa Rosa school and she was in a Scambia, so we both were able to go on to state, but now that wouldn't be the case. We would actually compete, and only one of our schools would be going on nowadays. So it's become a lot more competitive. And I I love that we even have a couple of schools that have had multiple teams, and we are hoping hopefully next year to have two teams. So it's become way more popular than I think I ever thought it would be. I remember we were fighting and we would have to play two characters, you know, a witness on both sides because we had so few people. And now we have students that, you know, have to help out with side jobs and side roles or research who may not get a role their first year and they may have to wait to be an attorney or a witness the next year. And it's that's a great feeling to have that recruitment. Our school does a tiger showcase where we we have students come and visit, and that we were probably one of the most popular tables yesterday or the other day for that showcase. We were, you know, seventh in the state a couple of years ago. So we're we're a team to beat. So it it's a big deal. It's a big deal.

SPEAKER_03 13:59

So, Stephanie, are there tryouts? So we do tryouts and Miss Scuddery, she had them act out a Would you rather what was your question? It's so funny.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

You know, like would you rather wear a wet sock all day or have a wet sweatshirt? Yeah. And then they had to kind of have an impromptu argument and just to sign up see how they think on their feet with something silly, right there on the spot, give them a few minutes, okay, think about it, write some ideas down, and then go back and forth with somebody else. Because I mean that's that's really what happens in the courtroom.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

So I'm so glad that you said that because I once knew a dad who when they would have dinner at the dinner table and the children would start arguing, he would yell, switch. And the funny one child would have to argue the side of the other child. Is that kind of like that's what we did?

SPEAKER_03 14:47

Yes. We said, you want a sock, you want a sweatshirt, and then and so we would make them switch.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

And so, yes. I love that. What transformation have you seen kids go through from freshman to senior via mock trial? Okay.

SPEAKER_03 15:03

Well, I haven't been there. I've been doing this for two and a half years. So I haven't seen for, but I will tell you, just this one year, we had a student who the last round, he was a quiet, quiet student. And all of a sudden, at our last round, he just got fiery and was like talking louder and objecting and asking these cross-examination questions.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

You know, in the pocket, like he was owning the courtroom. I looked at his mom, she was sitting next to me. I was like, What did you feed him for breakfast? Who is this kid?

SPEAKER_01 15:32

We were like, give that kid some weenies every day. He was amazing. And that was not how he started. No, not at all.

SPEAKER_03 15:39

So they just come out of their shell. And I think one thing with the mock trial is the more experience you have in the courtroom, you learn more and you do become a stronger attorney, a stronger advocate. And same with the witnesses, the more experience you have. And it just takes sometimes those four years or sometimes a couple of different rounds to get comfortable speaking in front of a judge.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Well, there is something to be said about trying on a role for a person's confidence. Because I remember when I had a sales job, I was like, had to pretend to be somebody else in my head in order to look confident. Your customer service voice. Well, it was just my confident sales lady demeanor, you know. And I remember feeling like I felt like I was acting. And then one day I realized, wait, no, I am confident. And so there's so much benefit for kids to have space to try on these different roles, and all of them have to be confident. Right. But they're different versions of confidence, so they can kind of find what fits them.

SPEAKER_03 16:40

That's really we always we have a well, my husband and I, who's we're both attorneys, we have a rule, and we named it after one of our friends in law school. We called it the Trey Crawford rule, because he would walk into the courtroom or do like a mock trial, and he would have no idea what he was saying, but he was so confident you believed. And so we tell our kids So that's what we tell the students.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Do the Trey Crawford rule. We're like, just be con say it with confidence. And nine times out of ten, they're probably gonna rule for you just because you said it with some gusto.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Okay, I'm so glad that you brought that up, Stephanie, because I was thinking about okay, you're an attorney. Now I know your husband's also an attorney. You have children who are in mock trial. This sounds like a total recipe for more arguments on the domestic front. We have lots.

SPEAKER_03 17:23

Miss Guttery's met two of my kids, and so she knows she's had to put one of them in his place one time.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Yeah, she'll give me the notes for one of them, and she's like, okay, you get to handle this one. Oh, that's true. The other one doesn't really want to be in mock trial, and that's okay. Um, but he likes to sit on the sidelines and he'll give feedback. But yeah, one's definitely yeah. So we have definite arguments at our house.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

Is that a legitimate concern for parents thinking about encouraging their kids to participate in mock trial? No. That they'll become more argumentative at home.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

So my oldest, who's at West Porter right now, was in mock trial for three years and never wanted to be the attorney, is pursuing science, but always wanted to be a witness and loves theater. And we even though law school was not on the horizon for him, it helped him to articulate and to pull those details out, what was important, what wasn't important, what needed to be said, what could be left out, but to also listen for the questions. Because that's a big thing that we always have. You know, they can't just have their questions written out and ignore the answers. They need to be listening for those answers to in order to respond. So that is a huge transformation that we see, or at least hope to see for those students that progress through mock trial is that point where they're they go from just writing the questions or asking the questions to become a questioner and a listener at the same time. Because if they're not, if they're just questioning in order to respond, they're not really kind of having a conversation. You know, we want them to listen in order to be able to, you know, have have that back and forth and and to ebb and flow or to catch that one detail that maybe they misspoke or they said the wrong color or the wrong date. And oh, wait a minute, you know, and to impeach them to call them out. And hers are just freshmen, so they're learning, and that's something that they'll they'll grow into. But watching mine kind of grow in that and have those different characters of being a bartender or a DJ or a scientist, you know, whatever the character may be, they kind of got to put that hat on and learn to help be, you know, the details that they needed to be, the person that they needed to be.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

Have either of you found that mock trial has increased students' sense of civic responsibility?

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Oh, absolutely. I can speak to that. We have two students who graduated last year and both have gone on to debate/slash mock trial programs in college. One is at Duke and one is at Washington Lee. And I'm very super proud of them.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

I think we interviewed these students. You did.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

I'm like, this sounds familiar. And they are two of my absolute favorite. I got to write all their letters of recommendation and speak with colleges and help them get scholarships. They made me absolutely just tear up at graduation. They absolutely were leaders not only in the courtroom, but outside of the courtroom. They were able to take those conversational skills to build programs and develop programs, but also to gain internships. They were able to both work in, you know, offices and clerk and work in county offices and gain experience that helped them with letters of recommendation and to get into the schools that they wanted to get into by building those relationships and being able to stand in front of somebody and not be embarrassed and be able to hold their own in a back and forth conversation with adults. And that can be intimidating for a lot of high school students, even IB students or scholar students. And our program, our mock trial, is open to both. Sometimes they're used to being the smartest in the room and just getting away with it, but sometimes they need to be with other people or older people and to be able to hold a conversation and to get funding or to get a position. And they can do that.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

There's so many social benefits that I'm hearing here. Are there any university scholarships available through this program?

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Not directly for our program, but the two sp that I just spoke about, and then we have one that actually graduated last year who was gone on to Harvard also. They've been able to take their experience and their some recordings and some of the things that they've written in order to gain access to college level teams. And so it may not have been a scholarship, but some of those teams then do have benefits where they travel. The student who went on to Washington and Lee, she was able to audition right on to as a freshman to the Washington and Lee Mock trial team. She is absolutely loving it. The Duke one made an alternate and he's doing some debate work. And then the one at Harvard is doing some debate work also and hopes to get on the team next year. But even it wasn't a direct scholarship, it opened a lot more doors than they would have had.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

A door opener for sure. As we wrap up, can you tell us what Escambia County Public Schools have this program? Because I mean, parents might be really excited knowing all of the social and cognitive benefits, even if their kid may not have any interest in pursuing a law career.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Well, it's a lot, and the schools change. It really depends on having a teacher and or community support behind it. Even though it's not a particularly long season, it's it's different than any other program. You can't just, you know, oh, I'm gonna work an hour here or an hour there. I mean, sometimes you have to sit down for a couple of hours here, and each round takes two hours just to practice of one side. So as of right now, it is Pensacola High School, Tate, West Florida. I think that might be it. Santa Rosa has a bunch. And then there's, you know, the Santa Rosa has Pace and um Gulffries, Gulfries, Navarre. And then we had Walton, South Walton's had a team before. Like I said, we go all the way to Walton for the circuit. And Dr. Penrod, like I said, at the Dean of Professional Studies at West Florida, he's been instrumental bringing that to and giving us that practice session. And so that has really helped the program to explode, to give us that practice program and to help show our students what is available here locally. A lot of them have been able to sit in classes and watch him and sit in some classes and meet some of the students that are there and kind of find out what legal studies is about and what it might look like in college. So, yeah, so means Scambe County has been super, super supportive. We've got district people that'll come in and help watch the teams and to help coach. We even have a couple of district people that were former coaches. Oh, I love that. Kelly Crosstag is amazing in the HR department, and she was a big, big coach at TAPE for many, many, many years.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

It's exciting to hear that the popularity is spreading and that more schools in our geographical area, not just in the county, are picking up the program. So hopefully, by hearing this, parents, if they don't have this program at their child school, will be able to say, hey, we would be interested in that and start the process of getting the right resources to make that happen. Thank you, ladies, so much for doing that. That's been great. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and share. Voices United in Education is a production of the Scambe County Public School.