The Mock Review with Ben and Drew

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. ...