| WCL and Maryland high schoolers stage
trial by jury BY ADRIENNE FRANK “I want to be a trial lawyer, plain and simple.” Since he was a little boy, Jon Marko aspired to stand before a jury one day and argue a case. And two weeks ago, in a crowded seventh floor courtroom at the Montgomery County Judicial Center, Marko, a second year student at the Washington College of Law (WCL), got that chance. Marko is one of 100 student-attorneys in WCL’s Trial Advocacy Program, which for the last 40 years has helped participants sharpen their litigation skills and perfect their persuasive techniques. After a semester spent learning the art of the opening statement and the cross examination, students put their skills to work during a series of mock trials, held Apr. 21, in Rockville, Md. Seven day-long trials were held simultaneously before seven trial and appellate judges, with students from Col. Zadok Magruder High School filling the jury boxes. The details of the fictional case, Dixon v. Providential Life Insurance Co., read like a script from Law and Order. A well-respected judge with financial problems has been found dead, nine days after taking out a sizable life insurance policy. The insurance company has denied the wife’s claim on the $500,000 policy, contending the gunshot to the judge’s head was self-inflicted. The wife is arguing it was an accident and is coming before the court to collect. As the student-attorneys called to the stand a parade of witnesses, played by their spouses, friends, and classmates, the Magruder jurors looked on, riveted. When a witness said something juicy—“He told me he was worth more dead than alive,” claimed one of the witnesses—the students furiously scribbled on their notepads. And it’s not just the jurors who are impressed with the caliber of lawyering they’re seeing. “You could go into a real courtroom, and some of these students are more articulate and better prepared than the actual attorneys trying the cases,” said David Aaronson, director of the Trial Advocacy Program. “It really is something to watch.” For the students, the trials represented the culmination of months of preparation. “There is a substantial amount of ‘detective work’ that went into the trial,” said Marko, who was on the plaintiff’s team. “Additionally, we had some facts in our case that were just flat out bad for our side. We had to think of ways to deal with those facts so they didn’t jeopardize our theory of the case. That was a major challenge.” Throughout the semester, students also worked closely with experienced litigators and judges, some of whom have been with the program for 20 years, to hone their courtroom skills. Those enrolled in the fall semester concentrate on criminal litigation, while civil trial advocacy is the focus of the spring semester. In addition to litigating two cases in WCL’s high-tech courtroom—with students swapping roles as attorneys, jurors, and witnesses—the lawyers-in-training also worked with a professional actor, who teaches them theatrical presentation techniques. Paul Morello, who appeared in the big screen version of John Grisham’s courtroom thriller, The Pelican Brief, teaches students where to stand, when to pause, and how to breathe. The goal, said Aaronson, “is not to change the students, but to improve their communication with jurors, and, above all, teach them to be
persuasive.” Back at the Montgomery County Judicial Center, the students delivered their closing statements, and the high schoolers retreated to a small jury room to deliberate. This is the fourth semester WCL has partnered with Magruder and social studies teacher George Bachtell. For 15 years before that, the law school was affiliated with Damascus High, another Montgomery County school. For their time, the high school students, who range from freshmen to seniors, received a service learning credit, which is required for graduation in the state of Maryland. However, Bachtell knows the students walked away with much more than that. “Almost without exception, my students felt a sense of responsibility to do a good job,” he said. It enhanced their confidence in that they participated in an adult activity and performed well.” That sense of civic responsibility is echoed in the high schoolers’ post-trial comments: “I learned that I like to volunteer and also that I might want to be a lawyer some day,” wrote one student. “Despite the lengthy trial, I found myself interested and inspired,” mused another. Even though the seven juries were presented with the same facts of the case, in the end, they delivered four different verdicts. Two sided with the defendant; two ruled in favor of the plaintiff for the full amount; one sided with the plaintiff for $250,000; and two juries were hung, unable to reach any sort of consensus. “I thought it was fascinating to see the range of results,” said Aaronson. “It shows the uncertainty associated with litigation, and the difficulty to predict an outcome.” Marko was among those who emerged from the Rockville courtroom victorious. “This was one of the most positive experiences I have had in law school,” he said. “Of course, the thing I enjoyed the most was winning the maximum verdict allowed at trial in four minutes, the fastest verdict the judge said he has ever seen in all of his years in the program.” |
