Tuesday, November 09, 1999
Budding lawyers gird for battle of justice
Mock trial marathon a first for NKU team
BY SUSAN VELA
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HIGHLAND HEIGHTS — When law student Todd Myers stood in a courtroom recently, his speech stumbled, he lost his train of thought and seemed torn between what he was reading and what he was trying to diagram.
The Northern Kentucky University law student hopes to iron out such kinks by this weekend, when he and three classmates will compete in the first Kentucky Intrastate Mock Trial Competition.
“When you can say it out loud in a trial setting, you can see what works and doesn't work,” said 24-year-old Mr. Myers, a third-year law student from Lexington, Ky., who works in the Fayette County Commonwealth Attorney's Office.
The four members of NKU's first trial competition team will be pitted against University of Kentucky and University of Louisville law students Friday and Saturdayat the Fayette County Courthouse.
The team — consisting of Mr. Myers; Rene Heinrich, 26, of Fort Thomas; Gary Payne, 42, of Richmond, Ky.; and Tad Thomas, 25, of Louisville — will split into prose cution and defense teams.
They will try a true-to-life case involving a trailer park, a man named Buzzard and a stabbing death. They will meet today for their last practice session.
“It's pretty neat when you learn that you haven't wasted three years,” said Ms. Heinrich, who wants to try white-collar crime cases after she graduates. “It's been a good way to combine all the law school knowledge you have and actually put it to practice.”
Trial team members be gan practicing in September. In a mock NKU courtroom, have tried cases before actual attorneys and law practitioners.
Those with actual trial experience have offered tips on making cases more plausible, where to stand in the courtroom and how to deal with judges, jurors and witnesses. Law students have honed the techniques needed to succeed — good presentation, an adept mind, story-telling skills and sure-footed knowledge of the law.
At last week's practice session, the defense team of Mr. Myers and Mr. Payne alleged that the man who died was depressed and killed himself. The prosecution of Mr. Thomas and Ms. Heinrich countered that his drunken, live-in girlfriend fatally stabbed him.
Tamra Gormley, formerly of the Kentucky Attorney General's Office, put on a stern face to play the role of judge.
Mr. Thomas practiced his opening statements, citing the fox hunt and the proverbial red herring. His point? To prove all testimony is not trustworthy.
He thinks the competitive mock trial experience will prove invaluable to his career.
“You can plan your questions all you want, but until you actually have a witness you really don't know how it will play out in court,” he said. “We're going from trying a case as law students to how an attorney actually would try a case.”
This weekend's battle also will help the NKU team train for two spring competitions. It should ease their jitters after they graduate and try cases for real, too, said Kathleen Hughes, the trial team's adviser and an assistant NKU law professor.
“It's frightening and exciting all at the same time,” she said, recalling the first time she entered a courtroom as a lawyer. “You're not sure of yourself. For some students, this is why you went to law school: to litigate. That's exciting.”
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