Think of some of the greatest upsets of all time: The U.S. men’s hockey team’s “Miracle on Ice” win against the U.S.S.R. at the 1980 Winter Olympics, 15-year-old tennis phenom Chris Evert’s straight-set trouncing of the world No. 1 Margaret Court in 1970, Henry V at Agincourt. 

In February, the underdog Swarthmore’s Mock Trial team pulled off its own historic upset performance at the Regional Tournament of the American Mock Trial Association (AMTA), going undefeated and logging an 8-0 record while racking up an eye-watering point total. 

In doing so, the team booked a ticket to the opening round tourney of the national championship, but they missed going to the national finals by a whisker. What makes the Swarthmore victory so unusual is that the team is student-run, with no official faculty mentorship, and no well-heeled, in-house law school behind it for advice and support. These happy few, this band of future barristers, do it on their own. 

Mock trial competitions are highly structured simulations of what students might eventually face as attorneys in a courtroom. For the AMTA events, the organization releases a packet of files containing all the materials for a single case that will be argued in all competitions that year, except the national finals. The teams compete in head-to-head fashion, one team as plaintiff and the other as defendant, with team members playing the roles of attorneys and witnesses as well. The teams are awarded points by tournament judges — experienced members of the legal profession — on their effectiveness during the trial. 

The Swarthmore team is only five years old, started in 2020 by Scout Hayashi ’22 and Veronica Yabloko ’22.

“None of the current team members know how much ‘faking it till we made it’ was going on during the program’s first year,” says Hayashi. “The whole year we had been telling the team to aim high, trying to convince them we could advance to the next tournament after regionals, but I was just hoping we wouldn’t finish last.” 

They did not, but nor did they shine. 

Or so they thought. On the five-hour drive home, Hayashi was mulling whether the team would be able to make it over the long haul when they got news of a scoring error. Swarthmore had earned an honorable mention.

“As someone began reading the corrected scores, we realized that we had come just a few points short of a trophy,” Hayashi recalls. “I was driving, so I had to be stoic about it, but it was a big deal! People were yelling, I teared up. We didn’t make it out of regionals that year, but I knew that it would just be a matter of time.” 

Made-for-TV moments are rare in mock trial events, but can be delightful. In a recent match against Villanova University, Swarthmore’s co-captain, Joshua Ovadia ’25, was cross-examining a Villanova witness. During the testimony, Adrian Duran Rey ’27, the team’s president, noticed a contradiction.

“The witness had said the complete opposite in the deposition,” he says. “I quietly tapped Joshua on the shoulder and handed him the page with the underlined statement.” 

Ovadia nailed the witness on the lie and pounded the point home in his closing statement. 

“I was able to go up there and say, ‘Members of the jury, the defendant lied to you. She lied to me. She lied to everybody in this courtroom. Find her guilty,” Ovadia recalls. “And then I just sat down and I was like, ‘Oh my God, we've done it. We've had the mock trial moment.’ It was so fun.”

At the February Regional Tournament, held at American University in Washington, D.C., the Swarthmore A team topped rival schools that are perennial contenders at the national championship each year. In addition, the team had the fourth-best point differential out of more than 800 teams that competed in the regionals nationally. Ovadia recalls that one of the tournament judges was shocked to learn that four of the team’s members were first-year competitors. 

“She told me how lucky we were to have a surfeit of young talent, and frankly, I couldn't agree more,” says Ovadia. “This is the best tournament result in Swarthmore's history, and we hope to continue our success.”

The Swarthmore A team also won five individual recognitions for their performance, and the Swarthmore B squad went 4-4, taking points from the second-place hosts, American University, along the way.

While the camaraderie of mock trial competitions is enjoyable, the preparation is grueling. It takes many hours of study for each match, with the whole team working together to analyze case material, hone presentations, and improve tactics. For those headed to law school, the benefits are obvious, but the analytical skills students gain are transferable to almost any field, as is the quick thinking that mock trials demand.

One unexpected benefit of the Swarthmore squad’s lack of tutoring may well be greater mental flexibility.

“Some teams have a faculty coach for each student,” says Ovadia. “When we go up against them, it’s like David and Goliath.”

The team took on the University of Virginia, the reigning national champions, during the Black Squirrel Invitational hosted by Haverford College in November. “I thought we were going to get crushed,” says Ovadia, but the match ended in a tie. 

“One of the judges told me that teams with more coaching can be more scripted and almost robotic,” Duran Rey says. “We focus on thinking on our feet, and try to take advantage of things in the moment. In their feedback, the judges said we were very adaptable and it made us stand out. I think that’s one thing that makes this program special.”