The Mock Review with Ben and Drew

Ben and Drew discuss all the results from week three of the 2021 AMTA Regional season.

It's the third year in a row we've done this, I think you get how it works. Ben and Drew discuss the results from Week Two of the 2021 AMTA Regionals (and get a bit loopy in the last five minutes).

Drew and Ben go through the first week of Regionals results and break down the strong showings and surprising letdowns from regionals 1A - 1H.

Ben and Drew discuss recent invitational results in January including Ben's experience at Great Chicago Fire, why more West Coast teams are winning invitationals this year, what the case changes mean for Petrillo v. Martini & Peony Estates moving forward, and reactions to the 2021 Regionals assignments.

For their third "roundtable" episode, Ben and Drew welcome Kate Hayner-Slattery of Northwestern Mock Trial. Ben, Drew and Kate discuss fall invitational results, case bias in Petrillo v. Martini/Peony Estates, and their general thoughts on the fall season and how our community is adapting to virtual Mock Trial.

Now that we've got a few weeks of virtual Mock Trial behind us, Ben and Drew sit down to discuss everything we're seen from the Fall 2020 season so far. Ben and Drew break down the AMTA invitational results, discuss Drew's recent experience at Empire, talk about Ben releasing State v. Gardner (the Maryland High School Mock Trial 2020-21 case packet), and go through what they're seeing so far with...

Civil Case Committee Chair and friend of the podcast Michael Gelfand joins Ben and Drew to discuss *Estate of Genesis Petrillo v. Harper Martini & Peony Estates*, the 2020-21 AMTA case packet. Mike covers what it has been like behind the scenes when the committee had to change topics on short notice, how the committee approached writing a packet they knew would be tried exclusively online, whe...

Drew and Ben are joined by Empire Mock Trial Executive Director Justin Matarrese and Director of Competition Operations Viran Weerasekera to discuss the history and mission of Empire Mock Trial, how Viran designed PROcess (the digital tabulation and tournament management system used by Empire), whether Empire would ever consider reviving The Downtown, and how their organization is adapting to the...

Ben and Drew are joined on this episode by Team 36, the winning team at the inaugural One Last Time Tournament: Sonali Mehta and Georgia Lala of Duke, Steven Becker and Isabel Pentland of Tufts, and Elias Neibart of Emory. This episode is a wide-ranging discussion covering how their team came together, what it was like competing with people from other programs, thoughts on competing as attorneys a...

Drew and Ben are joined by Dan Peale of UVA Mock Trial for a discussion on his time at Virginia, the emotion of two consecutive second place finishes at NCT, his experience at Trial by Combat, and how he and his team are preparing for the first-ever One Last Time Tournament. Then Ben and Drew break down the OLT field and talk about some of the unique challenges they think competitors and teams wil...

Ben and Drew are joined by AMTA Board Candidate and University of Chicago coach Sam Jahangir for a roundtable discussion on the 2020 AMTA Board meeting. Topics covered include the decision to move the 2020-21 season online, the decision to scrap the original 2020-21 case topic, the motion to permit the CRC to issue warnings, the motion to ban scouting, and the fact that the Board meeting was live...

Drew and Ben cover the last few months in AMTA, including Ben's experience coaching at Trial by Combat again and thoughts on virtual mock trial, the final cancellation of the 2020 season, the One Last Time Tournament, the announcement of the Student Advisory Board, the 2020-21 case topic, and the important motions up for debate at the 2020 AMTA Board of Directors meeting. Then Sonali Mehta, Seva C...

On part two of our 2020 Trial by Combat preview, Drew and Ben are joined by Abbie Heller, the Assistant Director of Trial Advocacy at the Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law. Abbie gives some insight on how the trial advocacy program works at Drexel, and then goes into detail on how she and Justin Bernstein of UCLA Law are adapting Trial by Combat for an online format. Finally, Abbie g...

In part one of our 2020 Trial by Combat preview series, Ben and Drew are joined by two 2020 TBC competitors: Regina Campbell of Chicago and Sonali Mehta of Duke. Regina was accompanied by witness Peter Bound, and they discussed Chicago's mock trial program, the disappointment of not finishing the season in their hometown, and how Regina is going to approach preparing for Trial by Combat virtually...

For this episode, Ben and Drew try something different. Nat Warner of Wesleyan joined the show for a roundtable discussion on a wide variety of topics, including the possibility of finishing the 2020 season online, the new ORCS pairing system and how Nat and Ben experienced it during ORCS this year, whether AMTA should add a tournament for teams who narrowly miss NCT, what areas AMTA does well and...

American Mock Trial Association (AMTA) Tabulation Director Johnathan Woodward spoke with Ben and Drew for a wide-ranging conversation about mock trial, including his thoughts on the new ORCS pairing system, some examples of the best calls he's gotten from AMTA Representatives during competition season, how AMTA pairing and tabulation systems have evolved over the years, what it's like to announce...

Friend of the pod Justin Bernstein returns to talk with Ben and Drew about the College Mock Trial Online Championship, a recent competition hosted by UCLA Law School. Justin breaks down the origins of the idea, how the scoring and judging worked, what interesting trends he saw in the scoring data, and when we should expect to start seeing the results.

On the latest episode, authors Brian Pilchik, Amanda Mundell and Emily Miller join Drew and Ben to discuss their book, Winning Objections: A Mock Trial Guidebook. The authors go through how the idea for the book was hatched, their writing and editing process, why the book is structured the way it is, and what they hope competitors and coaches will get from the book. Then Ben and Drew give their re...

Drew and Ben discuss hosting and postponing the 2020 National Championship Tournament with Devon Holstad, a coach and former competitor at Loyola Chicago. Devon goes through the planning process for hosting an NCT, how things have been behind the scenes since the COVID-19 pandemic developed to the point where the NCT had to be postponed, and his program's philosophy on the "World Cup" bid for NCT...

Drew and Ben break down results from the first five ORCS: Cedar Rapids, Cincinnati, Geneva, Lancaster, and Santa Monica. They also discuss the latest developments in the COVID-19 pandemic since AMTA announced the postponement of all remaining tournaments last week.

Ben and Drew discuss AMTA's decision to postpone the remaining 2020 ORCS and the 2020 National Championship Tournament due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Note: Ben recorded this episode remotely, so his audio quality is lower than normal.

Note: this episode was recorded last week, before the first weekend of ORCS results were released. On this episode, Ben and Drew analyze all of the remaining Regionals results, including the two west coast Regionals from week two, and all of the Regionals for weeks three and four.

Ben and Drew break down the results of the first two weeks of Regionals, except for the west coast Regionals on week two. (Those results weren't out yet at the time we recorded this episode.)

Just in time for that holiday car ride, Ben and Drew answer listener questions submitted via email, Facebook, Twitter, and the new Impeachments forum. Topics include top teams and competitors on the circuit this year, how to transition from high school to college mock trial, how to build a program from the ground up, and several other issues. Then Ben and Drew break down the case changes and discu...

"I'm so sorry this happned [that we were gone for so long]" "It's all my fault [that we didn't upload sooner]" We promise we're not gone, we were just (missing). Thanks for following in Jordan Ryder's footsteps and never calling the police. Criminal Case Committee Neal Schuett joins Ben and Drew to talk State v. Ryder, his thoughts on winning a national championship both as a competitor at Iowa an...