<p>For tryouts, about a week before the actual tryouts there is a meeting and you fill out a form with a few things, one of them being whether you want to be an attorney or a witness. Then you get a time and two attorneys and one witness audition at the same time. They usually keep it pretty mixed up so no team members from the previous year audition with each other. The attorneys are required to read a speech (it's supposed to be an opening or a closing, but for some reason they always pick some random dramatic monologue type thing) and then do either a direct or a cross of the witness. The witness is required to go through the direct and the cross from the two auditioning attorneys. It's relatively informal and if you are a member of the team from the previous year you try and make it as easy as possible for whoever is auditioning. I usually go first with my speech so they can have more time to look over it and then go ahead and perform the direct so they have a little more time to formulate their cross (these can be prepared in advance, but sometimes the witness is one you didn't prepare for, you just get nervous, etc) and collect themselves. We don't object during tryouts because it's hard enough for people who've never done it before without having me yelling at them. :p The tryouts are more for looking for raw talent, those comfortable speaking in public, those with good style and delivery, and witnesses who are believable. Notes are pretty much always used and I just run through a few brief lines of questions. Nothing serious, and I know I'll make the team so I try to make it easy on everyone else. Although, sometimes due to odd scheduling we'll go multiple times to help out. I know a witness went 3 times and I went about 4 or 5 times in various capacities to fill in the blanks. I remember my first time auditioning. I went with one of the best attorneys on the team going against me and I completely forgot I was supposed to do a cross examination and I ended up directing him again, so I know how nerve-racking it can get and I keep that in mind. We all want to get people interested in Mock Trial because we lose people that graduate every year and if we don't get good talent in we won't do well the next year, so we are all really friendly and helpful to the kids auditioning. For example, this year out of the five attorneys on the team I will be the only one not graduating this year. Our best witness is also graduating. So we are trying to help the JV team grow and get better by going to their practices on our off days and coaching and guiding them. </p>
<p>If you want to try and get Mock Trial started at your school you should try talking to the principal or whoever is in charge of activities like that and get them to contact your state's bar association.</p>
<p>I need to start breaking my responses up into paragraphs better. :eek:</p>