What is Mock Trial?
- Undergraduate mock trial is an academic intercollegiate competition. It is governed by the American Mock Trial Association (AMTA), and numbers over 700 member teams.
- Each school is provided with a case at the beginning of the season which it will work with throughout the year. Each team presents both a Plaintiff (or Prosecution) side and a Defense side.
- Each side is comprised of three attorneys and three witnesses. Those teams travel across the country facing off against other mock trial teams from other schools.
- The trials are judged by volunteer attorneys who score both the students who act as attorneys and the students who portray witnesses.
Who Participates?
- Mock Trial at the University of Cincinnati is an extracurricular activity and an academic competition team. We are also a class and you can get up to 3 credits for both Fall and Spring semester.
- We meet two nights per week on Mondays and Wednesdays from 6:00 to 8:00 pm. We also travel out of town approximately one weekend per month for competitions. All travel and lodging expenses are paid for by the budget allotted by the University.
- The season begins in September and ends in either March or April, depending upon how far we advance during the AMTA sanctioned tournaments.
- Any undergraduate student of any major can compete on the mock trial teams. A team is composed of between 8 and 10 students. Currently, UC has 2 competing teams.
How Can I Join?
- We are always looking for new members! Whether or not you want to be a lawyer, if you enjoy public speaking or acting, mock trial is the place for you.
- All you need to do to join the team is to show up at our introductory meetings at the beginning of the season. Dates for the introductory meetings can be found here. All details will be provided in those meetings.
- After the introductory meetings, tryouts are held to determine which students will be placed on which teams. You don't need any prior experience, and if you haven't done mock trial before, we will fill in all the details at our introductory meetings.
- For more information or to let us know that you are interested in joining, please email [email protected].
