Mock Trial senior places at top national competition

Mock Trial senior places at top national competition

McDonald and Davis at their competition over the summer. Courtesy | Chloe Noller

Senior Patrick McDonald advanced to the finals in a national mock trial championship over the summer and placed second overall alongside Abby Davis ’25.

Trial by Combat, a prestigious, annual, 1-on-1 collegiate national championship hosted annually by Drexel University School of Law and UCLA School of Law, invites 16 competitors nationwide to participate.

“I was thrilled with how we placed,” McDonald said. “Competing in semi-finals and finals felt unreal.”

The tournament’s format prioritized creativity and quick thinking, according to McDonald.

“The case problem dropped less than 24 hours before the first round, meaning we had to prepare eight trial exams — statements and witness examinations — in one day,” McDonald said. 

McDonald competed in four preliminary rounds, twice as a witness and twice as an attorney, before advancing to the semi-finals and finals. He eventually lost in the final round to Rory Banfalvi from the University of Toronto.

McDonald said while it was difficult, it was also exciting, and he enjoyed the challenge.

“I will never forget staying up past 2 a.m. practicing public speaking with my coach, Jonathan Church, and my second chair Abby Davis,” McDonald said. “It was exhausting but also invigorating, and certainly an uncommon kind of fun.”

The rigorous application process for Trial by Combat required McDonald to compete against eight other attorneys for one of the last spots in the national competition, according to senior Chloe Noller, a member of the team.

“Part of me thought we could have lost in the very first round of the play-in tournament back in April, so everything after that was a blessing,” McDonald said. 

Noller said watching McDonald compete was a great experience because of how he could draw in the audience.

“No matter what he does, he’s a thrilling competitor to watch,” Noller said. “You know, with only 24 hours of prep, you would not have known that he executed his cross-examinations and his closings and his openings with such skill.”

Junior Brennan Berryhill competed for Hillsdale in Rookie Rumble, a mock trial tournament for rising sophomores and juniors, which was held over Zoom.

Berryhill said Hillsdale’s 11-member team achieved the highest honorable place outside of the top 10 teams, finishing essentially in 11th place out of 64 teams.

“We got our case packet in early July, only 2 1/2 weeks before the competition, so it was a really quick turnaround time before we competed over Zoom,” Berryhill said.

Berryhill said Hillsdale’s team scored 2-2 in the first round, 4-0 in the second round, 3.5-0.5 in the third (three wins and one tie), and lost 0-4 in the fourth round against a team from Princeton University.

One of the challenges of Rookie Rumble was competing in a virtual courtroom for the first time, according to Berryhill.

“When you’re over Zoom, your camera is kind of constricted, so you just have to be a lot more clear about sight lines,” Berryhill said. “For example, if you’re an attorney, you can really only see the shoulders up, so you have a lot less of a range of dynamic motion.”

Berryhill said since being remote made the team feel disconnected at times, they made efforts in the week before to practice together virtually.

“We just hung out in Zoom rooms all the time and practiced together to kind of simulate that feeling of being almost in a tournament hotel,” Berryhill said. 

Junior Ty Tomasoski, who also competed in Rookie Rumble, said he was impressed overall with how the team did, given the quick turnaround time and virtual format.

“How everyone did, especially all the attorneys who had to memorize all the case law and sort of drill the stipulations and the facts of multiple different affidavits in their brains for cross-examinations, it was really impressive to see how much work people put in to figure out a 70-page packet in three weeks,” Tomasoski said.

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