Local schools prepare for state mock trial showdown

Students from three area high schools, including Greensburg Salem, will take their legal skills to a virtual courtroom this weekend to compete for the state mock trial title.

This year, 232 teams from 199 schools competed in district and regional mock trial competitions. Of those, 16 qualified for the state competition, which is organized by the Pennsylvania Bar Association.

In addition to Greensburg Salem High School, other local finalists are Eden Christian Academy in Sewickley and Mt. Lebanon High School.

“They are a very committed, tight group of kids who have worked very hard to get where they are, and I am very proud of them and how far they have come,” said Kristen Solomon, coach of Greensburg Salem’s team.

The competition began Friday. It will continue Saturday and Monday.

Greensburg Salem won the 2017 state competition. It has not been back since.

Students spend hours researching a fictional court case and preparing their arguments. They play the roles of lawyers, witnesses, plaintiffs and defendants, and must argue both sides of the case. “I feel like a lot of my students really enjoy debating and persuading,” Solomon said.

This year’s case pays homage to classic horror movies. It involves a suspicious death at a zombie-themed fun run. The victim is named George Romero, after the late famed director who made numerous classic zombie films in Southwestern Pennsylvania, including “Night of the Living Dead.”

Mt. Lebanon had a mock trial team, but it disbanded almost a decade ago. Teacher Pete DiNardo helped restart it three years ago. This will be the team’s first appearance in the state competition.

“Our team has improved each year, in quality but also in quantity,” he said. The school’s mock trial program has more than 20 members, divided into three teams.

Mock trial is fiercely competitive, which helps bring intensity and excitement to the rigorous work involved.

“To me, their growth is more important, but these kids, they come to this because there’s a winner and a loser in many cases,” DiNardo said.

In addition to their teachers, students are often coached by local lawyers. Aubrey Hiskey is one such lawyer. She was a member of Eden Christian Academy’s mock trial team as a student. Now she helps other students prepare for the competitions.

Eden Christian is no stranger to the state finals, having been eight times in the program’s 13-year history. They would have been last year, but the competition was canceled due to the pandemic.

The legal knowledge Hiskey learned on the mock trial team gave her a head start when she started taking law classes in college, she said. She’s not the only Eden Christian mock trial alum who has gone on to be a lawyer.

“We’ve had a few lawyers in our program, and I actually have a student (I coached) in law school now, which makes me feel old,” she said.

Normally, students would travel to a real-life courtroom for the competition, but this year they will participate via the Zoom videoconferencing platform due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Real trials and real lawyers are facing these kinds of problems, so it’s something we’re all adjusting to,” Hiskey said.

The winning team will advance to the national mock trial finals in May, also to be held virtually. The victorious students will have their work cut out for them. The district, regional and state competitions all featured the same case, but the winning team will have just over a month to learn a new case in time for nationals.