The Illinois Trial Team finished fourth in its division at the national championship tournament earlier this month, contributing to Illinois rising 40 spots in the American Mock Trial Association rankings — from 54th to 14th in the nation. 

Coupled with AMTA awarding Luiza Zanon with the team’s first All-American award in a decade, nationals rounded out what team members called a special season. 

“I would have been absolutely thrilled … if we hadn’t made it to nationals, cause we worked so hard,” said Helen Jones, president of Illinois Trial Team and recent University alum. “Being able to end the season like this and go to nationals for the first time in eight years, and having my personal final round be such a good round, and go directly into winning fourth place was amazing.”

The team’s path to success, however, started far before their showing at nationals. It began last fall, when they received the year’s case, and launched into months of practice and tournaments. 

Each year, organizers give mock trial teams around the nation the same fictitious case, which they both prosecute and defend when they face off at tournaments throughout the year. This year, the case involved the daughter of a billionaire, who brought a civil lawsuit against her older sister after their father died. 

Throughout the year, the team practiced roughly nine hours a week, working on the case they would build against the daughter, and how they would argue that she was not the killer. Their arguments relied on facts and evidence provided in the case, like eyewitness testimony by an investigative journalist, and the murder weapon — a bottle of potassium extract — in the daughters’ room. 

Illinois Trial has three teams, A, B and C, (or Blue, Orange and Silver, respectively) which began competing in October at tournaments called the “stacked season.” At tournaments, teams from each university take on either the prosecution or defense. Judges score them on opening and closing statements, direct and cross-examinations of witnesses, and more.

After regular season tournaments, Illinois Trials’ A and B teams competed at regionals in February. This was the first step toward making it to nationals. There, the A team went 5-3, falling short of a nationals bid or invitation. But the story didn’t end there — the B team finished 6-1-1, and secured Illinois a spot in the Opening Round Championship Series.

Considering the struggle of making it out in previous years, team morale was low heading into the ORCS. As a result, they arrived at the tournament in Geneva, Illinois, with tempered expectations. 

“We were worried about it — I think we weren’t super-duper expecting to get out,” Jones said.  “This is a younger team than we’ve had in past years, so we were going and planning to do our very best.” 

Still, to their surprise, the team finished top six at the ORCS with a score of 6-2, earning them their first bid to nationals in eight years.

“Heading into that next level, morale was so low across everyone,” said Zanon, junior in LAS and first-year competitor. “We kind of had no faith that we would make it through. Then we ended up making it through, which was a really special moment. Our program has been so close to making it to nationals for so many years.”

Preparing for nationals would prove to be its own challenge, though, as the tournament used a different case than the regular season. This gave the team roughly three weeks to prepare new prosecution and defense theories. 

The national case followed Skyler Sinclair, a country club staff member who died after a bowling machine strangled him when his tie got caught. The case focused on whether the country club was negligent and possibly liable for causing his death.

The A team practiced every single day preceding nationals. They prepared their arguments, drafted materials and scrimmaged — all with immense help from the B and C teams. 

“I really do feel very grateful towards our B and C teams,” Zanon said. “Throughout the entire nationals process, not only were they super supportive, but they challenged us in the ways that we needed to be challenged so that we could succeed at nationals.”

Preparation complete, Illinois Trial headed to Cleveland in early April. Once again, they had no expectations for how they would perform. 

“We were just thrilled to be at nationals,” Jones said. “I would tell (the team) before we even got there, like, ‘Hey, if all of you stand up and introduce yourselves and sit back down and don’t say anything else, I’m going to be so happy’… we were just happy to be there.”

The team first faced Rhodes College, one of the best programs in the nation. They took one point off them, losing 1-3. Next, they faced Loyola University-Chicago and swept them 4-0. 

In the third round, they faced another top-ranked program, Emory University. Illinois won 3-1 in what ended up being a major turning point for the team.

“It was such a good round,” Jones said. “The fact that we got three ballots out of that, I mean, our whole team was so excited. I think that was like an, ‘OK, we can actually do this,’ kind of moment.”

It was at nationals that Zanon took on the role of a witness for the defense. This feat later earned her the All-American award. Zanon, who has years of theater and speech experience, got on the stand and cried on command. Thanks to this skill, she gained sympathy from the judges as she attested that the death was Skyler’s fault. 

“I played Devin Harris … the country club executive manager,” Zanon said. “(I) kind of could talk about Skyler’s training a lot, which was very integral to our defense case because I was kind of the only person I could get up there and be like, ‘No, I saw Skyler do this before …
He was the one who was negligent, not us.’”

Illinois faced the Georgia Institute of Technology in their final round. However, scores were not released immediately. The team had to wait for the award ceremony to see the results. 

Following some formalities, the award ceremony began with announcing personal awards, which included Zanon’s All-American. Zanon was the last person called in her category and was in disbelief that she won. 

“It was a very special moment,” Zanon said. “I did not think that it was going to be me. Then when I sat that down, I was truly in a trance. I felt intoxicated by that award, it was insane.” 

At last, AMTA began revealing placements for teams. It began with the honorable mentions, or the teams’ expected placements. Teams were continuously being called up, but Illinois was not. Some team members began to doubt they had placed at all.

“So now we’re panicking,” Jones said. “(Emma Troy, co-captain of the A team) and I are so worried about this that we’re all sitting in a line and we pass it down the line telling everyone, ‘We might have lost on (combined strength), don’t get too excited.’”

Still, other team members held onto hope, believing Illinois was not called yet because they had placed very high. Then came the reveal: Illinois had tied for second place. They finished fourth in their entire division after beating Georgia Tech 3-1. 

This result meant that Illinois had not only qualified for nationals for the first time in recent history, but had placed among the very best schools in the nation. After all the hard work they had put in throughout the year, this felt incredible to the team. 

“I was crying during the (ceremony), I was very proud, I was very happy,” said Aarushi Raizada, senior in Business and team treasurer. “I felt a sort of vindication because previous competitors that I know would have killed for the opportunity just to compete at nationals. They tried so hard and they came so close and they always ended up missing it. Now, I think everybody felt so vindicated by us winning. We won for more than just ourselves.”

Jones was proud of the result. She said it gave her closure after the years she put into the mock trial.

“I’ve been doing mock trial for seven years … so this has been a really incredible way to wrap up so much of my time,” Jones said. “It’s very sad to leave mock trial and be done with it, but I think that it’s way less sad than it would be otherwise because, truly, this could not have ended any better.”

Both Raizada and Jones, along with several other team members, are graduating and will no longer be on the team. Still, looking ahead to next year, Zanon feels excited and ready to head to nationals again.

“I’m excited to see how our team morphs into something different,” Zanon said. “I’m also just excited to see what witnesses I get to play … This time we’ll be ready for a final round if we are lucky enough to get there.”

[email protected]