Broadcast and Law Students Work Together During Mock Trial
Faculty from the Newhouse School of Public Communications and College of Law have teamed up for the seventh consecutive year in an innovative cross-campus collaboration to allow future television reporters and future lawyers to experience the drama of a high-profile murder trial.
Professor Elliott Lewis, graduate program director of broadcast and digital journalism in the Newhouse School, and Professor Todd Berger, director of advocacy programs for the College of Law, brought the students together for the mock trial of State v. Cullen, a fictional case involving the deaths of two bar workers. One of the victims’ coworkers is accused of the double murder.
The law students are playing the roles of prosecutors and defense attorneys, delivering opening and closing statements, questioning witnesses and making objections during testimony.
The Newhouse students are practicing their skills as television journalists, performing live updates during breaks in the trial and producing a narrated report after its conclusion.
“With a top-rated journalism school and a top-rated trial advocacy program located on the same campus, it doesn’t make sense for us to stay isolated in our academic silos,” Lewis says.
In previous years, the journalism exercise was incorporated into one of the law school’s trial advocacy classes. This year, Berger and Lewis decided to build it into the law school’s annual Lionel O. Grossman Mock Trial Competition, making the experience of interacting with the student journalists available to a wider array of law students.
“I honestly don’t know of another law school that has attempted something like this,” Berger says. “It gives law students a taste of having to represent a client in the media as well as in the courtroom.”
The Newhouse students were required to request permission from the court, overseen by Berger, to allow a television camera in the courtroom and must adhere to the court’s restrictions limiting its movement. The law students were encouraged to make themselves available for interviews with the reporters following the verdict.
The experience marked a role reversal for law student Jackie Napier, a former television reporter at WHAM-TV (ABC) in Rochester, New York, who played the role of a prosecutor in the competition.
“I cannot overstate just how important I think accurate court reporting is,” Napier says. “The broadcast students I met through this competition really showcased the high level of training that Newhouse is known for.”
Lewis and Berger came up with the idea when Lewis approached the law school about having his students observe a mock trial to learn more about the court system. Berger proposed having the journalism students cover it like an actual trial, exposing the law students to working in the media spotlight.
“You never know, some of these students could meet again at a real trial someday,” Lewis says. “My hope is that both the reporters and the lawyers will have a better understanding of where the other side is coming from as a result of this experience.”
