Witness Preparation and Practice
How to prepare as a mock trial witness — memorizing your affidavit, developing chemistry with your attorney, and handling unexpected questions under pressure.
Owning Your Affidavit
The single most important preparation task for any mock trial witness is to know your affidavit inside and out. This does not mean memorizing it word for word, although many top competitors do. It means understanding every fact, every timeline, every relationship mentioned in the affidavit so thoroughly that you could discuss any detail from any angle without hesitating.
Start by creating a timeline of events from your witness's perspective. What did they know and when did they know it? Then identify the key facts that support your side's theory and the facts that the opposing attorney will try to use against you. For each potentially damaging fact, prepare a response that acknowledges the fact honestly while providing context that minimizes its impact.
Test yourself by having a teammate ask you random questions drawn from your affidavit. Can you answer accurately without looking at the document? Can you answer questions that rephrase the same fact in different ways? The opposing attorney will not use the same language as your affidavit, so you need to recognize your own facts when they are framed differently.
