We are very short staffed and... it’s really going to be a stretch and very difficult.” said Junior Lily when explaining her team’s situation. Because the dates for the Mock Trial state competition conflicts with Global Link this year, four members in Mock Trial were forced to consider their priorities and make a decision.

Seniors Caroline, Grant, Andrew and Tristan were given a choice to continue participating in Mock Trial and miss the state competition or quit Mock Trial altogether. They were all strong members of the team, Caroline was one of the members who won the best witness award at the 2013 King County district competition.

Although the team has always prided itself on its ability to send two teams to State, the loss of three key witnesses threatens the team’s ability to do so.

Teams have to be chosen as one of the top 10 teams in the District’s Competition in order to participate in the State Competition, which happens a month after districts.

Mock Trial coach Dawn Todd said, “We usually end up at districts in okay shape but not really polished, and every year the competition gets tougher and every year we make it into state by the skin of our teeth. It used to be that we were often in the final round at districts and we’ve even won the district competition, but that hasn’t happened in the last few years.”

Todd’s worries only deepened when she heard that only one of the students, Caroline, had decided to stay. The other three students decided to pull out of the team.

Andrew thought it would be better to quit if he couldn’t fully commit.
Andrew said, “I couldn’t get emotionally or intellectually invested in the program if I was going to miss [State]. ”
When asked how this affected the dynamic of the team, Lily, who is usually a witness, said, “We had arguably our best witness leave the team ... [and] frankly, the last practice we had everyone just argued.”

Because each member has already been assigned their roles, making up for the missing people was extremely daunting and difficult.

“We had to go from 14 people to ten people, and that’s not an easy thing to do, [so there is a lot more pressure on us now,]” said Lily
However, a solution was proposed and carried out. The other witnesses in the team decided to take on the roles of those who dropped out. Caroline, junior Erica and junior Hugo are now responsible for another role in addition to their original ones.

Todd expects this conflict to happen again next year. She said, “I need to take it upon myself to talk to the person who runs the Global Link activity and make sure that they know when my dates are way back in September.”

In the future, if the dates continue to conflict, Todd said, “I would not let them be on the A team... they could be extra super star [people] on the rookie team.”