"To the best of our knowledge…"

The Harvard Mock Trial Association was founded in 1996 by Tanya Barnes '00, Lauren Wetzler '00, and Tom Saunders '00.  Together, these three enterprising freshmen established a program that was composed of two teams—the Red Team and the Blue Team—and that was run entirely by students. Today, Harvard Mock Trial has expanded significantly beyond its original two-team system, but it retains its tradition of being entirely student-run, a practice that makes it fairly unique in the world of collegiate mock trial. While most mock trial teams around the country rely on coaches to train new team members for competition, Harvard Mock Trial remains competitive by building a strong sense of community among its members and by maintaining a process of continual mentoring between upperclassmen and incoming freshmen.

In the first six years of its existence, Harvard Mock Trial operated as a division of the significantly larger Harvard Pre-Law Society.  Proceeds from events thrown by the Pre-Law Society, such as LSAT classes and special law forums, helped to fund the expenses of the mock trial team. Other funds came in the form of biannual grants from the Undergraduate Council and donations from the Institute of Politics. 
In the spring of 2002, Harvard Mock Trial was split from the Pre-Law Society, becoming an independent student group at Harvard and losing its main source of funding in the process. 

Two years after its founding, the Harvard Mock Trial Team enjoyed its first notable success with the case of Griswold vs. United Gauges. The Blue Team placed 1st in the Hartford Regional and, joining with select members of the Red Team, became Harvard's first team to reach the National Championships in Des Moines.  There they exceeded all expectations with a Top 10 finish, placing 6th in their division.

Though the team experienced a brief period of absence from national competition in the years that followed, the team came into its own in the 2002-2003 season, beginning a proud annual tradition of outperforming its old best performance at each new tournament. In the spring of 2003, the team finished 15th in its division at the Des Moines National Championship. In 2004, the team placed 7th in its division. In 2005, Harvard Mock Trial sent two teams to the National Championship for the first time in its history. At the Championship, Team “Outrageous” finished 8th in its division while Team “Courageous” placed 3rd.

In 2006, Harvard Mock Trial once again sent two teams to the Des Moines National Championship and delivered its strongest performance ever. Team “Mafia” won the Thad Keal Division, earning All-American Recognition for all members of the team. Although it eventually lost to the University of Virginia, it did so by one point over three ballots, in the closest Championship Round in AMTA history.

Throughout this decade of progress, Harvard Mock Trial has undergone a number of structural changes. The first major change came in the 2002-2003 season. Captains Alvaro Bedoya ’03 and Lisa Schwarz '03 decided that the Red and Blue Teams, which had previously operated completely independent of each other, would be reshuffled after tryouts each year to maintain two equal teams. From this act of creating two equal, interconnected teams emerged the general form of the Harvard Mock Trial Association that exists today. The Association expanded in the 2004-2005 season with the addition of a new team composed entirely of new team members. After a solid performance during the year by this new team, the program voted to continue expanding the structure of Harvard Mock Trial by adding a fourth team.  In May 2005, the First Mock Trial Constitutional Convention was held. It was determined, among other matters, that the program would work according to an A-B-B-C team structure, with two captains presiding over the A-team.

This system proved to be a general success, with just a few unforeseen complications. At the conclusion of the 2005-2006 season, a Second Mock Trial Constitutional Convention oversaw several changes to the program, including the shift to an A-B-B-T team structure and the creation of an executive board.

Harvard Mock Trial began its 2006-2007 season with its best national standing ever. Out of the 500 plus collegiate mock trial teams in the country, Harvard A was ranked 2nd and Harvard B was ranked 50th.  As the team continue to expand, it began to explore mock trial initiatives outside of competition, including hosting college and high school invitational tournaments and creating a high school training program.

The 2007-2008 season was the most successful thus far for HMTA. Harvard A won it's division at the National Tournament, the program finished the season number 1 in the power rankings, and multiple students won the distinction of "All-American".

2008-2009 was filled with a series of new firsts for the program. The Executive Board was restructured, the Crimson Classic had its highest attendance ever, and the High School Seminars were the most financially successful in the history of the program. Numerous students won individual awards at Invitational, Regional, and Super-regional Tournaments, while the Harvard program compiled an unprecedented regional team record of 30-2.

In the 2009-2010 Invitational Season, members of HMTA compiled nearly a dozen individual awards, while the program scored three first place finishes at the Yale Invitational (one in each division) and the Brandeis Invitational Tournaments.

Despite being a student-run program, the Harvard Mock Trial team has had the advantage of receiving advice from some of the most capable legal minds in the country.  One such adviser has been Jerry Facher, the former Chair of the Hale and Dorr Litigation Department and a professor of litigation at Harvard Law School for over 29 years.  Those not familiar with Boston’s legal scene may recognize Jerry’s name for another reason: he was played by Robert Duvall in the 1998 film, A Civil Action, based on a true story.  In 2003, the team began working with Harvard Law Students Mushtaq Gunja '05 and Clifford Sarkin '05 to refine its case, and a close relationship between the undergraduate team and law school advisers has existed ever since.  Currently, the team is officially represented through faculty advisors Cindy Skach and Terry Aladjem.