Written by Anastasia Punosevac for The Rampage

At the beginning of the school year, everyone is excited. Excited to meet new people, start new classes, and of course, join new clubs. 

One of the many clubs available for students to join is Mock Trial. Mock Trial is where a group of students come together and split up jobs: there are the attorneys, and the witnesses, and they perform a trial (a mock of one rather). 

In the beginning, it was quite bumpy, as many new things are. Once everyone learned what this year’s case was about, 3 teams of people were created. These teams were going to be our teams for the next 3 months and we had to be prepared to work with these people to create something wonderful. 

The beginning was new and exciting, but a lot of hard work. We had to analyze the case, split up jobs, and of course get to know one another!

Each team was made up of many different people, many of whom have never talked to each other before joining Mock Trial. But as time progressed, we came to like working with each other. We were quite prepared, and going into the new year, everything was coming together. 

Our first competition!
On Friday, January 6, 2023, Pine Richland Mock Trial took a field trip downtown to experience our first trial. We finally had the opportunity to show off all of our hard work!

It was… interesting.

It was really fun meeting new teams and having the opportunity to go against them. And of course, it was fun missing school.

The real fun started the following weekend. On both Saturday and Sunday, we went to the Pitt tournament held at the Cathedral of Learning. The teams here were more advanced, and we had to be prepared to go up against some really tough teams. 

It was exhausting, 6 trials in 3 days, roughly 30 hours in competition total! (If you count the drive there and back as well as the lunch breaks). In the middle of the day, we had the opportunity to venture out (for about an hour) and go get lunch. It was so delightful being able to run around the city (in a safe manner), explore, get food, and experience new things with friends. None of us really knew how much we would miss it until it was over. 

Now, reflecting back on the experience, I can't imagine not doing it next year! So many fun and exciting memories were made. So many new friends made. And overall, it was so much fun getting to enjoy the city while also getting to show off our skills to opposing schools.

Even if we didn’t win every single trial held, we still won some, and we got to have fun in the meantime. I would not trade Mock Trial for anything! If you want to join next year, ask Mr. Caric for details!

Read more from Pine-Richland's student writers in The Rampage.