The UC Irvine mock trial team is hosting an elite mock trial tournament this January, featuring top schools from across the county. We are very much in need of attorney volunteers from the community to serve as competition judges.

More than half of all students who participate in mock trial are women, but year to year, our judging pool is often 60-75% male. This year, we hope to actively recruit more female attorneys to serve as judges. In our view, female representation among judges at these events can be an important part of showing ambitious young women that they belong in law.

Would you please share the details of our upcoming mock trial tournament with your membership at OCWLA? Here is our information for folks who are willing and able to help:

We are in need of judges for a collegiate mock trial tournament taking place on Jan. 6th & 7th at the University of California, Irvine.

You can sign up to judge by clicking HERE. Please sign up by Dec. 15th.

The trials: The trials are approximately three hours long and require no preparation. There will be two days of trials, both consisting of a morning round from ~9:00 to 12:00 PM and then an afternoon round from ~2:00 to 5:00 PM. Depending on your availability, you can judge as many or as few as you would like.

The case: This year’s case is a criminal matter about a heist that occurred at a charity gala. Each trial, the prosecution gets to pick one of two defendants to charge, selecting either (1) one of the alleged robbers ("Poe Cameron") or (2) a local billionaire accused of funding the operation ("Berkley De la Porta"). The evidence, charges and witnesses available vary across the rounds, which makes each trial unique and interesting to watch.

Judge orientation: Before each round, we will hold a 30-minute judge orientation session. In that session, we will explain how to judge the trials, how to score the trial ballot, and other logistics. No other preparation is needed to judge (i.e., you don’t need to read any part of the case ahead of time).

Judge check-in will open 30 minutes before the orientation session, making morning check-in at 8:00 AM and afternoon check-in at 1:00 PM each day. During both days of the trials, we will be providing bagels, coffee and lunch.

Here's the link to sign up: https://forms.gle/AUn3MDN2zC1C8KbR9