Time Changes to Ensure Efficient Competition Days

On The Record is back for its inaugural story of 2019!

Let me take this opportunity to wish you a Happy New Year from the Empire Mock Trial Family (better late than never, right?). The beginning of the year is always an exciting time at Empire as we review your feedback and consider ways to improve our competitions, while starting the process of case writing—sorry friends, no case clues today 😇

We have high expectations for the upcoming season after a strong 2018, which featured new venues in Atlanta and San Francisco as well as improvements to our Guest Witness program. As we look ahead to this year, our priority is to perfect our competition model rather than to introduce major structural changes. We will write a few short articles to preview the 2019 season—here is part one!

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Empire has made it a priority to ensure that competition days run as efficiently as possible in 2019. Part of that is making sure that trials are complete when we intend them to be finished. As competition organizers, we have to worry about logistics constantly (no really, it keeps us up at night because there are so many to think about)! While we do our best to control all event details, the one challenge we’ve had over the years is trial length–because there are so many variables.

Variables like how many objections will a team raise? What if a student gets sick during a trial? What if a judge takes a long time to rule on objections? What if a recess before closing takes 20 minutes? Then of course, with all of those variables, how can Empire best  manage trial length?

For most of our history, we used the college mock trial “all-loss” rule, which mandates that both teams should lose a round if their trial exceeds the 3-hour time period. But as a practical matter, Empire never enforced this rule—were we really going to sink 2 schools that invested time and resources into the competition because of a timing issue? For us, the answer was/is no. But the problem still remained that we needed to figure out how to control round time.

So two years ago, we abolished the all-loss rule, instead opting to include a “master time” rule, which said that while we wouldn’t “all-loss” both teams in a round that exceeded 3 hours, we had the right to intervene in a round that was running dangerously close to the time limit. Since then, we’ve done things like shorten closing arguments and eliminate breaks when necessary. That rule also was not particularly effective in consistently controlling round times.

In both scenarios, however, we failed to address the underlying question: why were trials running so long? This off-season, we looked at that question and took decisive action. Here’s what we decided:

Shorten the Pre-Trial Oral Argument

While each competitor technically had 10 minutes to complete their POA, students often used 12 because of courtesy time. This year, we are shortening the POA to 8 minutes. With courtesy time, students will still have 10 minutes to present their arguments, when necessary.

Give me a break

While welcomed, Empire breaks were historically untimed and unstructured. If a judge wanted to grant you a 10 minute recess before closing, there was no rule preventing her or him from doing so.

No more!

Every break at the competition will be timed, keeping timekeepers more involved with the trial (times listed below refer to maximum break time—judges may start trials sooner):

  • 3 minutes – break between POA and start of trial
  • 5 minutes – break between cases-in-chief
  • 5 minutes – break before closing

This should help us save time during rounds and eliminate confusion regarding the length of breaks.

I object!

Hyper-objecting, excessive objecting, over-objecting—whatever you’d like to call it—can slow down trials. After a spirited internal debate, we decided not to put objections on the clock (i.e. time objections)… for now. To control the length of objections, however, we are providing more explicit instructions to judges, which will include encouraging them to penalize teams for repeatedly raising frivolous objections (to be reflected in the extemp score and/or the examination in which they are about to perform). Additionally, if a trial is running close to exceeding the prescribed length of time (see the next section), and a judge reports that one team is objecting excessively, the Tab Officer has the right to deduct time from that team’s case presentation.

We understand that there are times when judges need to do a better job controlling trials. As part of our instruction on objections and timing, we will be sure to emphasize the importance of controlling the length of objection arguments; however, it is still ultimately up to teams to control how and when they object.

ALL STOP

Regardless of how hard we try, there is no getting around the fact that Empire trials will take longer than local competitions to complete. Unless we are willing to sacrifice the quality of our cases, the existence of the POA or the presence of recesses, there is no denying that our rounds require a major time commitment. That is why we are now giving teams 3 hours and 15 minutes to complete their rounds.

But that is not a fake 195 minutes; that is not a we’ll make an exception because a team didn’t realize they were taking so long to present their case 195 minutes.

It is a very real ‘all-stop’ rule. A trial will not be permitted to continue 3 hours and 15 minutes after it begins (i.e. the trial begins when the judge starts the POA and ends when the ballots are collected). It is incumbent upon teams—not the judge and not Blue Shirts—to check their watches to ensure that their trial is moving along properly. If a team is concerned that a judge is contributing to a trial’s length, they can and should report the concern immediately to a Blue Shirt or a Tab Officer.

While we will not impose a ballot penalty on teams, Tab Officers will cut time from both teams’ presentations if a trial is in danger of exceeding the all-stop rule. Tab Officers may deduct as much time as is necessary to keep the trial within the all-stop rule, and are empowered to do so without warning. There are only two exceptions to this: (i) a competitor or evaluator for the given round experiences an emergency that requires an interruption of the trial or (ii) an issue with the trial venue causes an undue interruption of the trial.

Is it time for lunch yet?

Everything I just described will (hopefully) make trials run smoother. But there is another barrier to your very well-deserved lunch break… evaluator comments! Some Empire competitions feature 3 or 4 evaluators, which often results in a long post-round feedback period. How many times are you sitting in a trial, listening to the comments while your stomach is grumbling?

To keep our days on schedule, we are now capping comments at 5 minutes per evaluator. Our evaluators will receive new instructions on this restraint, and timekeepers will be asked to enforce it. If an evaluator ignores a timekeeper, and keeps talking after time expires, then a Blue Shirt will be happy to intervene. We will still provide written feedback and encourage all teams to reach out to their judges via e-mail to receive detailed comments.

Just In Time

By shortening the POA, putting recesses on the clock, dissuading students from objecting excessively, and instructing judges to be more conscious of the length of objection arguments, we are confident that our teams can “all-stop” all of their trials, right on time.

What do you think of the changes? Have more ideas and suggestions? Send us a message or drop us a comment on social media.

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Applications are now open for the 2019 season! You can apply at empiremocktrial.org/apply.

Scholarship applications are due by May 3; all other applications are due on June 21.