Marshall’s Mock Trial club is preparing for this year’s competitions with two teams— one more than last year.
In Mock Trial, students simulate a courtroom trial based on a fictional case. While Marshall’s Mock Trial team has advanced to the state competition for the last three years, this year marks the first one they have had more than one competing team.
Senior and club communications manager Kalia Khuo attributed some of the rise in popularity to better promotion of the club.
“We’ve gotten better at promoting it [this year],” Khuo said. “When I first joined, I’m pretty sure there was one announcement about the interest meeting, and there wasn’t even an Instagram or anything.”
Khuo also said the club has been able to keep more members interested this year.
“We were a lot better at assigning roles sooner. Last year we did a lot of learning about the rules, and then people started getting bored of it. This year we started [saying] like, you are definitely doing this part. You’re going to have a spot.” Khuo said.
Khuo believes that this changed approach has encouraged students to continue their involvement.
“People are motivated to show up if they know they’re doing something,” she said.
However, Khuo also noted that the club’s growth has caused some challenges.
“The biggest new challenge is the fact that we’re right having to write multiple different [examinations and statements],” she said. “We’re having to coordinate across the teams, but also be a little bit different because we’re all starting from the same base, but at some point, and I’m not sure when, we’re all gonna have to eventually branch off.”
Junior and club treasurer Charlotte Buntoro also said that keeping all of the members coordinated has been a struggle.
“People have paid their dues, and so they’re members of Mock Trial, but sometimes they don’t show up to meetings,” Buntoro said. “If they don’t show up regularly, then the work becomes disjointed, and so it’s been hard to be a cohesive club with so many members.”
Despite the new challenges, Buntoro is optimistic about their chances at the Virginia Law-Related Education Institute State Competition this year.
“I hope we can do better at states than we have in the past,” she said. “I think we have more coaches this year and we have more members of leadership this year, so hopefully we’ll train harder, we’ll get better, and then we’ll rank higher at states.”