Two days of mock litigation among 15 legal teams fielded by 11 Arkansas high schools culminated in Springdale’s Har-Ber High School taking the top honors as the 2024 Arkansas State Mock Trial champion, earning the right to represent the state in national competition in May.

This year’s state competition centered on a fictional civil trial involving a question of negligence in the death of a teenager from injuries suffered in an accident at a trampoline park. Sitting in as presiding judge of the trial for the final round was Arkansas Supreme Court Chief Justice John Dan Kemp. High school students played the roles of attorneys and witnesses. Scorekeepers for the championship round were Arkansas Bar Association President Margaret Dobson, President-Elect Designee Jamie Huffman Jones, and former Mock Trial Committee Co-Chair Adrienne Griffis. A rotating roster of 52 area attorneys was selected to score the preliminary rounds of competition.

The teams that qualified for the final rounds were Little Rock Central High School, Conway High School, Haas Hall Academy in Fayetteville, Fayetteville High School (two teams), Har-Ber High School, Mills High School, North Little Rock High School, Parkview High School (two teams), Russellville High School, Springdale High School, and Tuckerman High School.

By Saturday afternoon, scoring of the competition had pared the final two teams down to Conway and Har-Ber High schools.

Kemp said mock trial competition provides a valuable learning experience for the students.

“It’s a great opportunity for them to get a fact situation and to prepare that fact situation to either prosecute or defend the case,” Kemp said. “It gives them the opportunity, not only in the preparation, it also requires them to think on their feet, to adjust to the rulings of the judge. I think it’s a very valuable learning experience.”

Anthony McMullen, this year’s chairman of the Arkansas Bar Association Mock Trial Committee, said the competition is designed to be as close to real-world litigation as possible.

The fictional case, which was published in October, is titled Corey Stark v. Spring Parks, Inc., and involves the accidental death of Wade Stark, a teenage resident of Cottondale in Natural County, Arkansas, of injuries suffered in a dodgeball room that resulted in catastrophic neck injuries.

The plaintiff’s case charges negligence, survival action and wrongful death and asks for damages for financial loss, mental shock and suffering, grief and sorrow, loss of companionship and deprivation of use and comfort of decedent’s society. According to a pretrial hearing order, the only issue to be determined at mock trial was negligence. The Har-Ber team argued the plaintiff’s case and the Conway team argued the defendant’s case in the final round.

McMullen said the mock trial experience provides students with a valuable, hands-on lesson in in how government, particularly the judicial branch, functions.

“There are a lot of opportunities out there for students to gain some level of experiential civics education,” he said, “but I think mock trial is probably one of the top programs in the state as well as nationwide that provides an experience where students can learn how a lot of these things work.”

The students on the Har-Ber High School team will go on to represent Arkansas at the National Mock Trial Championship competition, which is scheduled to take place in Wilmington, Del., May 2-4.

Team members for Conway High School are Natalie Hood, Daniel Taft, Avery Ferguson, Katharine Welky, Addison Choate, Caley Miller, Mustfa Zia, and Cole Britt. The teacher coach is Casey Griffith and the attorney coach is Matt Brown.

Team members for Har-Ber High School are Nora Shitandi, Samuel Myers, Carlos Pacheco, Adreana Perez, Antonio Landron, Mason Wait, Omar Ghalayini, and Caleb Whittle. The team coach is Joel Brown and the assistant coach is Trey Bowerman.

Awards for the top five outstanding witnesses in competition were presented to Parkview’s Fiona McFarland, Fayetteville High’s Lily Adler, Har-Ber’s Adreana Perez, Haas Hall Fayetteville’s Mia Alansari and Parkview’s Avery Turner.

Awards for the top five outstanding attorneys in competition were presented to Har-Ber’s Nora Shitandi, Haas Hall Fayetteville’s Sydney Brockett, Conway High’s Daniel Taft, Little Rock Central’s Luke Beck and Parkview’s Michael Hatfield.

Har-Ber High won the state championship five years in a row, from 2016 to 2021, before being beaten by Conway in 2022 and again in 2023. There was no state championship competition held in 2020 due to the covid-19 pandemic.

Under National High School Mock Trial Association rules, teams consist of six to nine official members assigned to roles representing the prosecution/plaintiff and defense/defendant sides, with six members participating in any given round. In each round, three members serve as attorneys and three serve as witnesses. Time limits are strictly enforced. The trial scenario switches from year-to-year between criminal and civil trials.

The National High School Mock Trial Competition began in 1984 in Des Moines, Iowa, with five states competing: Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin. Nebraska took top honors that year.