VIDEO: Future Paralegals Get A Feel Of The Courtroom

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – The Mississippi University for Women’s campus was filled with future paralegals on Saturday.

The school hosted a mock criminal trial to help students get the real feel of the courtroom.

Our Victoria Bailey was there and has more on this hands-on training.

“Particularly with this program, we had great teachers who really sold it to me and said, ‘Toya, if you want to go to law school this will help you for sure’,” says MUW senior, Toya McQueen.

The old saying goes, practice makes perfect, and the students of the Mississippi University for Women Legal Studies Department couldn’t agree more.

“Each team has to be prepared to play either the prosecution or the defense. Each of them have three attorneys on each side and three witnesses and they have to be prepared to do opening statements, directing cross examination, and the closing,” says MUW Legal Studies Professor Wesley Garrett.

The MUW Legal Studies Department built a legal team five years ago. It was almost an unanimous decision to start scrimmaging with other teams to ensure they were prepared for the National Competition.

“The coaches here at The W reached out to us last year. We were a brand new team and they reached out to scrimmage with us, so the team here made the trip to New Orleans last year and we had an opportunity to host them and so this year, they extended the invitation again and so we were happy to make the trip here to Columbus, to get an opportunity for our teams to scrimmage,” says Adria Kimbrough.

Toya McQueen is a senior at MUW and she says she’s always wanted to enter the courtroom, but the skills they are learning now, will definitely be beneficial in any field.

“I think most people, nine times out of ten, they believe that the skills they may learn here, are just to go to law school just to become a paralegal, but in fact, it can help you in all areas of your life. Whether that’s trying to be a broadcaster, or things like that. It helps you learn different communication skills and team building skills to help.”

Area attorneys acted as the judges for Saturday’s mock trial.

“We’re very fortunate to have the local bar association come in and be our judges. We also had some seasoned faculty members to come, who were very trained in judging competitions. They get their feedback, and how this would work, and how this would look in real day and real life. It’s so beneficial.”

The teams will go on to the National Competition in February.

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