Most students have seen their fair share of crime movies – watching lawyers defend their client with passion and hard facts, often leaving the jury in awe.
“You kind of have this idea based on movies and things you see in the media on how trials go about, but you don”t realize how far off this is until you actually get into it,” said University of Idaho law student David Kracke, who will compete in a mock trial tournament from noon to 3 p.m., Saturday in the Law School courtroom.
Irish Martos | Argonaut
Zachary Goytowski, D. Craig Lewis Trial Team President, explains the purposes of the moot court and mock trial competition that will take place at the UI College of Law Saturday.
Zachary Goytowski, president of the D. Craig Lewis Mock Trial team in Moscow, said this will be the first year holding a competition like this. It is also the first time two law students from different UI campuses will compete against each other for the title of top mock trial competitor.
In addition to the Moscow location, Goytowski said there is a UI College of Law campus located in Boise available to second and third-year students.
The Saturday trial will determine who is the top mock trial competitor at UI”s College of Law.
Each advocate will have about 45 minutes to present their case and their two witnesses.
The competitors are judged based on factors such as organization, clarity and passion.
The College of Law has offered the mock trial team as an extracurricular activity on both campuses.
Every year a team of four trial advocates is selected through a vigorous process.
All second and third year law students can participate in the month-long competition to earn the title of top trial advocate.
This year, Goytowski said that the competition began with 18 competitors from both campuses and dropped down to 13 by the second week.
“Competitors don”t usually realize how much work this competition is, so a lot quit” Goytowski said.
To establish who the competitors in the Saturday tournament would be, Goytowski said the four top trial advocates on the Moscow campus competed against each other in front of faculty at UI who determined the winner, Goytowski said. The top advocate in Moscow, Kracke, will compete against the winner from the Boise campus, Alexander Grad.
With the help of some third-year law students, Kracke said he has been able to work through the courtroom misconceptions and better prepare for the trial.
Kracke said he found out he would be competing in the Saturday trial only eight days prior.
Goytowski said the amount of law students who want to compete in the mock trial competitions has decreased. He said when his mock trial coach was a law student, there were as many as 70 competitors whereas this year there were only 18.
Goytowski said he worked with the Boise campus over the summer to coordinate Saturday”s competition as a way of motivating students to take part in trial advocacy and receive more recognition for their accomplishments.
“I think everyone wants to know who is the best advocate since we all have a desire to compete,” Goytowski said, “That kind of status has been missing from the tournament for awhile.”
There are a lot of valuable skills to be learned from participating in the tournament he said.
“Some of the skills in trial advocacy are just something that can”t be taught in classrooms,” Goytowski said. “Public speaking, thinking on your feet, and responding to arguments are essential to be a trial advocate.”
Though the competitors have had a short time to prepare for this tournament, Kracke said he looks forward to competing.
“I”m excited to get going,” Kracke said.
Jessica Gee can be reached at [email protected]