Ivy Years

Cornell is known for its outstanding mock trial team. We have eloquent defense attorneys, quick-witted prosecutors, hilarious and genuine witnesses, and dare I add, dutiful timekeepers. And then there’s me, newbie to the team and what’s my role? A forensic entomologist (Think Hodgins from Bones, just girlier). Getting thrown into the world of mock trial at the end of first semester meant immersing myself in bizarre (unless you’re in law school) practices  like referring to everyone by their last name and odd terms that apparently meant a whole lot more like “438″, “Rule 804-B1″, “this matter is not offered for the truth of the matter but merely to show the speaker’s subsequent action”.

Cornell Mock Trial has 3 teams, 436, 437, 438, as designated by the American Mock Trial Association. My team 438 fluctuates between 7 or 8 people, with the oh-so-dapper Captain Fanelli at the helm (wink).

In the weeks before Cornell’s Big Red Invitational and Yale’s New Haven Invitational, we had practices every night, sometimes going til midnight at Goldwin Smith. On cross practices, I got grilled on miniscule details from the 9-page affidavit I had to memorize. And thank goodness too, otherwise surviving the UPenn and Carnegie Mellon cross-examinations would not have been easy.

So let’s talk about Yale. The campus is a spectacular collection of gothic structures packed into a couple street blocks. It had the same austerity as Harvard, but like Harvard, we discovered the quaint little coffee shops or lunch places that Yalies frequent. I didn’t spot too many places that could’ve been sets for That’s Why I Chose Yale, which might be a relief. My photos are on Facebook.

Competition-wise, we did pretty well for a mostly-newbie team haphazardly brought together only four weeks before the tournament. One member even won an Outstanding Witness award for, dare I say, mastery of the Alabama accent.

Best of luck to the two Cornell teams moving on to the next round!