FAQs

There are two basic roles in mock trial: witnesses and attorneys. Witnesses appear in the trial and provide evidence that is used in order to craft an argument. Character witnesses are peripheral figures in the story that have a chance to provide key details while portraying an entertaining personality on the stand. Expert witnesses often have extensive knowledge of a particular field (e.g. toxicology) that is relevant to the trial at hand. They often have to deliver complicated scientific evidence in an easily digestible way. Finally, there is usually a defendant and/or victim figure in the trial that forms the emotional crux of the case. Both comedic and dramatic acting are involved in these roles.

Attorneys are responsible for questioning witnesses in order to extract the relevant information for the case. Every attorney performs a direct examination on a witness from the same team and a cross examination on a witness from the opposing team. They may also be responsible for an opening or closing statement (speeches that summarize and argue the legalities of the case).

Both witness and attorney roles are equally vital in building a winning team. Each trial involves two teams with three attorneys and three witnesses on each side.

Any enrolled student at Wellesley is eligible to join the team. We also welcome interested students from Babson and Olin College. Due to AMTA's registration rules, however, full-time students of Babson and Olin cannot be full competing members of our team for more than two seasons.

In college mock trial, every attorney must conduct both a direct and cross examination since we are restricted to three lawyers on a side. In addition, witnesses are encouraged to act (develop an accent, wear personality-appropriate costumes, etc). We operate based on a lightly modified version of the Federal Rules of Evidence and often incorporate presentations and visual aids during the course of the trial.

No! The activity is a unique combination of theater and debate. Many of our members join because they like one of those activities even though they have no intentions of going to law school. Teammates have majored in everything from sociology to mathematics in previous years.

Check out the Join section in the menu for more information about tryouts and the information session schedule! Updated information should be available in August for the upcoming year.

No! We’ll teach you everything you need to know. Many of our members did not do mock trial in high school and have been invaluable to the team. Our tryout process emphasizes the underlying skills needed for mock trial but none of the specific knowledge that one would only gain through experience in the activity.

The team practices from 7 to 9 PM on Mondays and Wednesdays throughout the season. Invitationals during the fall semester also require roughly two full weekends of availability (sometimes including an overnight stay).

Our program also holds a boot camp during Wintersession. We arrive a week before spring semester begins in order to spend our time refining the case for tournaments. Depending on your team, practice frequency may increase in the 2-3 weeks leading up to regionals (start of the spring semester).

While the time and effort required to compete are substantial, our members are still actively involved in campus life. Alums and current members have been involved in college government, work-study jobs, research (on and off campus), residential life, music groups, and more!