The Mock Review with Ben and Drew

Ben and Drew discuss the two ORCS results in week two and go through some final case balance statistics from Felder v. Koller Campbell Air.

Ben and Drew discuss results from the first six 2023 Opening Round Championship Series (ORCS) tournaments.

Ben and Drew discuss the ORCS case changes, the post-Regionals case balance memorandum, and the state of the open bid list. Then, Ben and Drew go through results from the nine Regionals in week four.

Drew and Ben discuss the eleven Regionals in week three (not twelve like we say multiple times on the show) and talk through some of the implications of the current state of the open bid list.

Drew and Ben discuss the recent results from Drew's TYLA National Trial Competition Regional, where his Tulane Law team advanced to Nationals. Then Ben and Drew go through the three AMTA Regional tournaments held in week two.

Drew and Ben discuss results from the nine AMTA Regional tournaments in week one.

Ben and Drew are joined by Melissa Toussimehr of Cal Poly SLO Mock Trial to discuss California AB 1887, which restricts using state funds for travel to states with discriminatory laws. Melissa discusses how this has impacted her program and how it will make travel difficult if they advance to Nationals. Then Drew and Ben break down several January invitationals, including Great Chicago Fire, Ramblin' Wreck, Beach Party, and UCLASSIC.

Ben and Drew round out the fall invitational season by discussing the results at CUBAIT and Yale, and then discuss the December case changes and the CIC invention advisory opinions released with case changes.

Drew and Ben go through recent invitational tab summaries from around the country, including GAMTI results and several other tournaments, and pick out a few teams they've noticed this fall. Ben and Drew also discuss some early case balance numbers, and talk about the Regionals assignments that were recently released by AMTA.

Ben and Drew are joined by Ben Wallace of South Carolina Mock Trial to discuss results from the Fall 2022 invitational season. Ben, Drew, and Ben go through results from the South, Northeast, Midwest, and West, and discuss which teams are starting strong and standing out so far.

For the 75th episode of The Mock Review, Ben and Drew welcome two special guests to look back at the last 4+ years. Jordan McGuffee of Haverford Mock Trial and Thomas Azari of UMBC Mock Trial join for this episode to turn the mics around and interview Ben and Drew. You'll hear about Drew's origin story at Haverford, Ben's time as a competitor at UMBC, Ben and Drew's favorite episodes and dream guests, and where they see the podcast going from here.

Drew and Ben are joined by Civil Case Committee Co-Chairs Elise Wilson and Sam Jahangir to discuss the 2022-23 AMTA case, Felder v. Koller Campbell Air. Elise and Sam talk about the inspiration for this year's case, how they worked together as co-chairs, how they decided on certain issues like expert witnesses and affirmative defenses, and how they each approach the challenge of writing a balanced case.

Drew and Ben sit down to discuss a few things related to this season, including the inagural Empire Baltimore Camden Yards Classic, their upcoming interview with case co-chairs Sam and Elise, how the Patreon and Discord are going, their periodic frustration with AMTA's transparency and willingness to speak publicly, and what they are looking forward to in the Fall 2022 invitational season. If you haven't joined The Mock Review on Patreon, you can do so at Patreon.com/TheMockReview.

Ben and Drew are joined by AMTA President Johnathan Woodward. Johnathan returns to the show to discuss why he decided to run for President, where he sees AMTA heading right now, his efforts to improve the diversity of the AMTA board and the organization as a whole, and his thoughts on the 2022 AMTA Board of Directors meeting.

Drew and Ben are joined by Anna Eldridge, the director of Rhodes Mock Trial, to discuss the 2022 case and Anna's history in AMTA. Anna goes through her origin story - including an incredible story of cross examining a former White House Press Secretary while in high school - and talks about what it's like to direct a program as storied as Rhodes. After that, Anna, Ben and Drew discuss the 2022 case, Felder v Koller Campbell Air, and get Anna's thoughts as a former AMTA case committee member on how the case reads to her and what she's watching for as the 2022-23 season gets underway.

Ben and Drew discuss their experiences coaching at Rookie Rumble, the 2022 summer tournament hosted by AMTA and open to rising sophomores and juniors. Then Ben and Drew are joined by Katie Volpert of Penn Mock Trial to discuss winning Rookie Rumble with her teammates from Penn, Rutgers, and Georgia Tech.

In the first segment, Ben and Drew are joined by Nat Warner to discuss the various motions at the 2022 AMTA Board of Directors meeting. In the second segment, Nat stays on and is joined by Kate Hayner-Slattery. Nat and Kate were both on the Rookie Rumble case committee, and they discuss the process for writing Arensman v. Scanlon and what they're looking forward to at the tournament itself. We hope you enjoy this nice episode of The Mock Review.

Ben and Drew start by announcing that we are launching a Patreon to help us hire an editor for the show. The first fifteen minutes of the episode discuss why we're hiring an editor and how our Patreon and Discord will work. (Spoiler alert: there's a free tier!) After that, Ben and Drew go through all eleven invention of fact motions that are set for debate this coming weekend at the AMTA Board Meeting in San Diego, and discuss the merits and potential issues with each motion. We know this is a very long episode, but we wanted to try and go through every motion in as much detail as possible to provide some information before the meeting.

Drexel Law Trial Competition Director Phil Pasquarello joins the show for a wide-ranging discussion on Mock Trial and the 2022 Trial by Combat competition. Phil goes through his time at Delaware as an AMTA competitor, what his program at Drexel Law is like, why he started his very successful video series WatchMock, and more. Phil then addresses the criticism raised on Mock Trial Confessions about this year's TBC field, and gives us a small preview of what to expect in this year's case.

Ben and Drew discuss results from both divisions at the 2022 AMTA National Championship Tournament, and then discuss a number of topics including COVID protocols at Nationals, the 2022-23 case preview, and the potential summer tournament for freshmen and sophomores. At the end of the episode, Ben and Drew remember some of the best props in AMTA cases, and look back on a challenging but successful 2021-22 season.

Drew and Ben are joined by Stella Asmerom and Travis Harper of Harvard Mock Trial to discuss Harvard's victory at the 2022 AMTA National Championship in Lancaster, PA. Travis and Stella go through the last three years of their experience with Harvard, from their time as freshmen to building the team that eventually won it all.

Yes, we know. This one is just a *little* bit late. We've promise we've got Nationals episodes coming very soon! In the meantime, here's the ORCS Week Two episode we recorded before NCT but Ben never got the chance to finish editing. (He's very sorry.) We chatted with Jack Styler of Wisconsin about their amazing run to Nationals this year, and we went through all four ORCS in week two.

Drew and Ben discuss the results from the four ORCS in week one.

Drew and Ben (belatedly) go through the results from the last ten Regionals in week four.

Ben and Drew discuss results from the ten Regional tournaments in week three.

Drew and Ben discuss AMTA's decision to hold ORCS and NCT in-person, and break down results from the Regional tournaments in Week 2.

Ben and Drew break down the first weekend of 2022 Regionals results. We're also joined by Amaya Ronczyk, President of Dillard Mock Trial. Amaya discusses what it felt like to earn Dillard's first bid to ORCS since 2018, and also speaks on the role that HBCUs play in our community, what it's like to compete at an HBCU, and what AMTA should be doing to support HBCUs and encourage competitive diversity in Mock Trial.

Ben and Drew discuss the recent news that all 2022 AMTA Regional tournaments will be held online.

Ben and Drew are back from a brief fall hiatus, and they are joined by Penn State President Dan Cohen to break down the Fall 2021 season! Ben, Drew and Dan go through results from a small number of fall tournaments, including Mumbo Jumbo, Tobacco Road, AAMTI, Mock at the Rock, Yale, Mocktopia, GAMTI, and Boston Tea Party. Then, the panel discusses the rise in COVID cases and the potential impact on the AMTA season. At the beginning of the show, Ben and Drew take a few moments to acknowledge the passing of Stanford Mock Trial Head Coach Thom Scher, and reflect on Thom's impact on the Mock Trial community.

After a short hiatus while Drew survives 1L, The Mock Review is back! Ben and Drew are joined by Riya Lakkaraju of Emory Mock Trial for a full report on how in-person mock trial looks right now. Riya discusses competing in a mask while Ben reports from the virtual season. After that, Ben, Drew and Riya debate how the AMTA season is going to look and discuss which teams are separating from the pack this early in the year.

Criminal Case Committee Chair Neal Schuett returns to the show to discuss the 2021-22 case, State of Midlands v. Dakota Sutcliffe. Neal answers questions about the origins of the arson charge and the retrial aspect, why the defendant isn't testifying, and how the committee prepared for the possibility of a hybrid season. Bonus topics include the "live fire" demonstrative possibilites and Neal's perspective on why the committee decided to burn down Chuggie's. (Editor's note: how dare they.)

Ben was present in Denver for the 2021 AMTA Board of Directors meeting, and in this episode Ben and Drew break down what happened at that meeting. Ben goes through what was discussed during the Tournament Administration Committee (TAC) meeting, how AMTA reached their decision on the format for the 2022 season, and his general impressions on how the board meeting went. Then Drew and Ben discuss other motions that were passed at the board meeting, and briefly discuss the results of the 2021 One Last Time Tournament.

Drew and Ben are joined by 2021 Trial by Combat Champion Audrey Shepard of UCLA Mock Trial. Audrey goes through her high school Gladiator championship, her time competing in AMTA at Moorpark Community College, what it was like to transfer to UCLA, and her entire experience preparing for, competing at, and winning Trial by Combat - including her extreme guilt at making Bennett Demsky close his cabinets during the final round. Drew and Audrey also discuss the round this past season that Drew judged where Audrey's rooster crowed while she was testifying as Austin Lewis.

With the board meeting set for next weekend, Ben and Drew spoke to two different programs to give perspective from both sides of the discussion about the competition format for next season. First, Ben and Drew are joined by coaches Beth Georgian and Matt Thornburg from the University of South Carolina Aiken. Beth and Matt discuss why they reached out to AMTA to ask for the 2022 season to be virtual, how their team operates with limited resources and several non-traditional students, and why they think AMTA should require COVID vaccines regardless of the competition format. Then Vice-President of External Affairs Bret Berry of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville joins the show to discuss why his program contacted AMTA and asked for the 2022 season to be in-person. Bret goes through their concerns of losing institutional knowledge if the 2022 season is virtual and how he thinks either way AMTA needs to provide guidance on how next season is going to look.

Ben and Drew are joined by Bennett Demsky of Tufts Mock Trial and Riya Lakkaraju of Emory Mock Trial. The first half of the episode is a discussion of each competitor's origin story and why they think Tufts and Emory are such successful programs. The second half is our 2021 Trial by Combat preview; Bennett and Riya discuss their plans for how to prep the case in 24 hours, what they learned as coach or second chair at TBC last year, and who they hope to face in a round at TBC in 2021.

Ben and Drew are joined by Sydney Gaskins and Thomas Kiley of UMBC Mock Trial. Drew takes over interviewing duties as Ben, Sydney and Thomas discuss the journey that was the last four years, how the program overcame some difficult challenges when Sydney and Thomas were freshmen, whether they considered not competing for their senior year in an online season, how they felt as UMBC progressed through the field at Nationals in 2021, and what it was like to win a national championship.

Drew Evans is joined by UMBC Head Coach Ben Garmoe to discuss the results of the 2021 AMTA National Championship Tournament. Ben and Drew talk about UMBC's victory, Yale's incredible performance, and the outstanding teams in both divisions at Nationals.

Ben and Drew are joined by highly decorated witness Gurbir Singh of Cal Berkeley to break down the NCT field and the prep process, including the challenge of managing burnout and exhaustion this time of year, possible sleeper teams in each division to outperform their TPR, Gurbir's thought on the west coast teams at Nationals (@ u MTCBIAU), who could win the entire tournament, and whether the two divisions are balanced.

For our first Nationals preview episode, Amanda Mundell returns to the show. Amanda is a member of the National Championship Tournament Civil Case Committee and she discusses how the case committee selected this topic, why they think the topic is sufficiently compelling and interesting to be used at Nationals, and how the committee considered time constraints and case balance when writing Westenmeier v Walton. Happy April Fool's Day!

Drew and Ben discuss results from the last four ORCS tournaments and start to look forward to the 2021 National Championship Tournament.

Ben and Drew discuss some recent decisions by AMTA and break down the first week of 2021 ORCS results. 04:23 - Discussion of recent AMTA moves on TPR and scouting 20:20 - ORCS 1A 34:14 - ORCS 1B 44:15 - ORCS 1C 57:17 - ORCS 1D

Ben and Drew discuss the last week of 2021 Regionals and look forward to ORCS.

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 online mock trial and how it works.

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, whether the committee was concerned about the complexity of a two-defendant case, and how the case committee approached building the stories and theories for this case.

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 new challenges of online mock trial.

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 and witnesses in virtual mock trial, how to use technology effectively, and what they'll remember about competing in AMTA.