In Anderson Hall, a group of 54 undergraduate UF students spend 15 to 20 hours a week working late into the night to prepare for fake court cases.
The UF Mock Trial Team will compete in the American Mock Trial Association’s opening round championship tournament, starting March 17 in Decatur, Georgia. If the team places within the top 48 of about 200 teams, it will advance to the national championship for the first time since 2014, said Cat Sheets, the organization’s president.
The team has a good chance of advancing to the national championship, which will be held in Los Angeles, Sheets said.
“This year we have a really talented, hard-working, dynamic group of people and we’ve been working really hard for this,” the 21-year-old UF political science senior said.
The team will also host its third annual Inter-Organizational Charity Mock Trial Tournament on April 8 and 9 at UF’s Levin College of Law. Proceeds from other university teams’ entry fees go toward the Innocence Project of Florida, a legal organization aiming to exonerate wrongly convicted criminals for free, Sheets said.
Riley Freese, an 18-year-old economics and Spanish freshman, said she’s excited for the charity event because the team is raising money for a cause she believes in.
“I think it would be interesting for people to come see us,” Freese said. “I think people hear of mock trial is, but they don’t exactly know what it is and what comes out of all the hard work we put into it.”
