The Mock Review with Ben and Drew

On the latest episode, Ben and Drew break down the 2019 National Final Round between Rhodes and Yale, where Yale was eventually stripped of their national title. Iain Lampert, two-time national champion at UCLA and 2019 final round judge joins the podcast to go through his analysis of what he observed during the round, how he scored each team, and how he thinks this impacts the AMTA community movi...

While this year was a bit tougher to pull off a "Two National Champions" episode, Ben and Drew do their best. On the latest Mock Review episode, the hosts discuss Trial by Combat with the 2019 champion, Stephen Johnson. Ben and Drew are also joined by "member of the team who scored the most ballot points in the 2019 National Final", Adam Chase of Yale, to discuss his AMTA witness career, the after...

Ben and Drew discuss everything that happened at the 2019 American Mock Trial Association (AMTA) Board of Directors meeting in Cincinatti, including a new pairing system for ORCS, several different proposals for changing our tournament structure, the new time limits for opening and closing statements, and the proposed rule to limit each program to one team at the National Championship Tournament.

On the latest episode, Ben and Drew chat again with Justin Bernstein about the 2019 Trial by Combat tournament hosted by Drexel Law and UCLA Law, and get an exclusive preview of the case before its release on Friday. Additionally, 2019 Trial by Combat competitor Jonathan Kuang (of UCLA Mock Trial) joins the podcast to talk about west coast mock, his disastrous first attempt at playing a witness, a...

On the newest episode, Drew and Ben dive into the results from the 35th AMTA National Championship, excluding the final round which will be the focus of another episode soon. Your hosts also look back at the season as a whole and briefly discuss the newly finalized 2019 Trial by Combat field. This episode also contains the ORCS Week Two analysis that was recorded before Nationals but was not relea...

Editor's note: this episode was recorded before the second weekend of ORCS, but Ben didn't finish editing it until now because he was preparing his team for their own ORCS. He's very sorry. On this week's episode, Drew and Ben discuss the first set of results from 2019 Opening Round Championship Series tournaments and go through the implications of having only five Nationals bids from each ORCS.

On the latest episode, Drew and Ben chat with Bruno Paes Leme and Gaby Pinzon of Florida International about earning ORCS bids in their first two years as a program. Ben and Drew also go through the eleven (!) Regionals in week three and discuss their own experience at the Owings Mills Regional, and then finish up by looking ahead to ORCS.

On this week's episode, Ben and Drew look at the results from week two of Regionals, including the several new teams who advanced for the first time and numerous top-50 teams who didn't advance to ORCS. Ben and Drew also look forward to this weekend's Regionals and their own teams who are competing in Owings Mills.

On the newest episode of The Mock Review, Ben and Drew go Regional by Regional to discuss all the results from the first week of AMTA competition. Juniata College President Haley Walker joins the podcast to discuss her program's cinderella bid to ORCS out of State College, and Ben and Drew look forward to this coming weekend and another set of Regionals across the country.

Editor's note: this episode was recorded back in mid-December but took a few weeks to finish due to some editing challenges. On the latest episode of The Mock Review, Ben and Drew are joined by Thom Scher and Jack Seigenthaler of Stanford Mock Trial to break down the case changes, what's behind Stanford's recent rise to the top of AMTA, and whether the style differences in west coast mock are over...

On the latest episode, Ben and Drew are joined by AMTA Team and Feeder Subcommittee Chair Adam Detsky. Adam breaks down the 2018 Regional Tournament assignments, and discusses how he and his committee go about placing 700+ teams into Regional sites around the country. Adam goes in-depth on the committee's process to try and make each Regional as fair as possible while also considering geography, R...

Content Warning: The first 12 minutes of this episode discuss the death of Alaina Housley and the issue of gun violence more broadly. The remaining portion of the episode begins at 12:02. On this week's episode, Ben and Drew discuss more fall tournament results, including the Black Squirrel Invitational, and respond to some questions regarding the 70% of teams that don't advance past Regionals, an...

On the latest episode of The Mock Review, Ben and Drew take a closer look at some early-season results and how they might predict how the rest of the season will unfold. Ben and Drew also discuss what they've seen so far at different tournaments with how Midlands Television Studios v. Danny Kosack is playing out and propose some possibilities for case changes after the fall. All of this and much m...

On the latest episode of The Mock Review, Ben and Drew are joined over two sessions by Elizabeth Bays of Yale University. Elizabeth discusses Yale's four consecutive appearances in the National Final Round, their reputation for creative theories and whether they push the limits of AMTA rules, and Elizabeth's thoughts on how AMTA can improve transparency and communication with its membership.

On the first post-case release episode of The Mock Review, Ben and Drew chat with Civil Case Committee Chair Michael J. Gelfand about Midlands Television Studios, Inc. v. Danny Kosack. Mike (aka The Gelf) delves into why the committee decided to torture anxious college students with absurd case previews and then drop the case with no warning, how the core idea for this case came to fruition, what...

On this week's episode, Ben and Drew cover the major decisions from the 2018 AMTA Board of Directors meeting in Las Vegas. We've got exclusive audio of AMTA President Will Warihay's introductory remarks at the meeting, and Ben and Drew walk through the discussion in the room on each of the major motions, including invention of fact, tournament structure, objections before openings/closings, raisin...

On the first full-length episode of The Mock Review to not feature a guest, Ben and Drew discuss invitational tournaments and flying blind at competition. Ben gets on his soapbox about being fair to newer programs, and Drew explains the risks of sending out a lot of early invites as an invitational host. Ben and Drew take opposite positions on looking at ballot results during tournaments, and agre...

Ben and Drew talk to Will Warihay, the current President of the American Mock Trial Association (AMTA), about a number of different topics related to the upcoming AMTA Board of Directors meeting. The discussion covers Will's background in mock trial, why he ran for President of AMTA, what he wants to focus on during his term, his thoughts on improper inventions and finding more AMTA tournament hos...

On this extra-long episode of The Mock Review, Ben and Drew first talk to Dani Kunkel about winning the National Championship Tournament, almost dropping the trophy during an impromptu Stanley Cup-style celebration, and what's next for Dani. Next, Nick Ramos gives his thoughts on the judging in Minneapolis, breaks down his approach to Trial by Combat, and describes what it's really like to carry a...

You want scoops? We've got scoops. Ben and Drew discuss Trial by Combat with Justin Bernstein, the mind behind the first collegiate-level individual championship, and he gives our listeners some exclusive details about the case packet before its release. We also talk with Eric Roytman, a two-time All-American Attorney from Ohio State University, about his preparation for Trial by Combat and his ec...

Ben and Drew introduce themselves, set out the plan for future episodes, and have a quick debate on the merits of challenge format pairings at invitational tournaments.