Welcome into Mock Trial Masterclass, your guide to controlling the courtroom. I'm Luke and I want you to be a Mock Trial Master. Let's talk about how you can make that happen. So I don't usually like to talk about data in these episodes, but let me do it for just one second.
Because I know a national champion mock trial coach who several years back decided he wanted to look and see how a team's score and opening statements affected their performance in the rest of the round. And here's what he found. As he looked at ballots, he realized that the team that scores higher in opening statements went on to win the round 80% of the time. That means that four out of five teams that win opening statements go on to win the round.
And he also found that it didn't matter whether the round was a blowout or a tight race. Winning opening statements meant that in all likelihood, you were going to win the round. So what does that mean? If you're an opener, it means you need to do a darn good job.
Now I don't mean to put pressure on you or make you feel really, really nervous when you get up to give an opening, but if you're giving an opening, you need to know how big your responsibility is. Because oftentimes, you are the biggest predictor of whether your team will succeed. So, that's why in this video, we're going to go through the three things you need to include in every opening statement if you want them to rock out. And here's the thing about the three things, the thing about the things, the thing about the three things we're going to go over is It's a step-by-step process.
We're going to start with the first thing, we're going to go to the second thing, and then we're going to go to the third. And that's going to give you sort of three stages for every opening statement and help you write a great one every single time. Ready to go? Let's do it.
The first thing you'll need to do in your opening statement is tell the story of the case. Every case that goes to trial has a story. Sometimes that story is really, really exciting in an entertainment sense, maybe like, You know, Kim killed Johnny or Johnny killed Kim, right? It's all these great details. It's these great exciting characters involved.
Sometimes the story isn't quite so exciting. Sometimes it's Jim breached a contract. Sometimes it's Bill didn't uphold his duty to act reasonably, right? Something a little more boring.
But whether the story is naturally more exciting and the kind of thing you'd see on TV or in movies, or if it's not quite so exciting, every case has a story. And as the opener... It's your job to tell that story to the jury.
But here's the thing. You don't want to tell that story in a dry way. For example, let's go back to the Kim killed Johnny example.
If I've got the story of Kim killing Johnny and I need to tell that in my opening statement, what I don't need to do is say, well, on June 23rd, 2021, Kim pulled out a gun and killed Johnny. And Johnny died and the police... Boring, boring, boring, right? We don't want... any of that sort of thing.
When we're telling the story, we want it to sound really exciting. So why don't we reverse things a little bit and do it this way? It's 8 a.m.
on a cold day. Johnny knows it's cold, so he puts on a coat before he walks out to his front doorstep. He looks down the street at the journey he's going to take to work, just like he does every day. But this day was a little different, because around the corner was Kim waiting with a gun.
Kim pulls out the gun, aims it straight at Johnny, fires. Johnny dies. Right, you see how much drama was in that?
How exciting your story can be if you just take it up to the next level? And that's the first thing you've got to do in every opening statement. If you're the plaintiff or the prosecution, that means probably literally telling the story of the case.
what you believe happened. And if you're the defense, that means telling the story of why you believe it didn't happen that way or what you believe really happened. Regardless of which side you're on, regardless of how you do it, you need to tell a story first and foremost, and it needs to be interesting, exciting. and even a little bit theatrical. The second thing you want to do in an opening is preview the trial.
And the two ways you'll preview the trial is you'll do that through the law and you'll do that through witnesses. You'll preview the trial through the law really only if you're the plaintiff or prosecution or if you're the defense and the plaintiff or prosecution didn't do this. And what this means is that you simply give the jury a preview of what the law says for the case.
Just about every mock trial case in high school and college has happened. law attached that has specific elements that if this were a real live trial, the plaintiff or prosecution would have to meet those elements, prove those elements to win the trial. And so it probably is going to be helpful if we explain those elements to the jury.
But here's the thing, we don't want to get too in the weeds. We don't want to get too complicated with this. I've seen too many opening statements that turned into legal lectures that would even put the brightest and most in.
interested lawyer to sleep. That's not what we're looking for here. In and out, quick and to the point. Tell us what the elements are and if you can use smaller words instead of bigger words like legal words that you'd find in a textbook, staying away from those as much as possible is a good idea. So we preview the case through the law of the case and we also preview the case through the witnesses.
Typically in mock trial you're going to be calling three witnesses and it's a great idea to tell the jury who they're going to be hearing from. And a great way to make that happen is instead of using everybody's full proper name because those are really hard to remember, try using titles as much as possible. Because think about it, if you're sitting and you're a jury member and you're listening to this opening statement previewing the trial you're about to hear, are you more likely to remember you're going to hear from a doctor who specializes in heart procedures or are you more likely to remember Dr. John James Reynolds III?
Right. you're going to remember that first part. There's a greater chance that during the trial, you're going to be sitting there anticipating, okay, we're going to hear from a heart surgeon later on versus, oh, what was that guy's name? Come on, come on, come on. Right.
If you can give the jury a title to latch onto, that is the way to go. So the first thing we do, we tell the story of the case. We do it interestingly.
The second thing we do is we preview the trial. We talk about what the law surrounding the case is, and we preview the three witnesses we're going to call. Once you do that, you're ready for step three. Before we get to step three, I want to remind you that you can schedule coaching with me, and it's very, very easy to do, and I promise we'll have a whole lot of fun.
You can click the link in the description on YouTube or in the show notes on podcast platforms, and I can meet with you one-on-one, with you and a teammate one-on-two, or with you and your entire team and do, well, whatever it is you want to do. I can listen to a speech, a direct, anything can give you feedback. I can teach on an area of mock trial you'd like to learn more about. Whatever you want, I'm your man. The last thing you want to do in a great opening statement is give the jury a call to action.
And a call to action simply means telling the jury what do you want. So, what do you want? You want them to rule for you. At the end of the trial, you want the jury to, if this were a real-life case, go into the jury room and rule in favor of your side of the case. So at the end of your opening statement, tell them that.
Tell the jury that at the end of today's trial... We're going to ask that you find in favor of the plaintiff or the prosecution or the defense, right? Whatever side you're on, you've got to give the jury a call to action.
Now, ultimately, a jury would know that that was at stake, right? You know, the jury's not sitting there going, well, gee, why are we here today? What are we going to have to do, right?
They know that they're going to have to pick which side, put on the better case. This is more than anything a formality. This is how good opening statements end. So if you have a theme, which by the way you should be weaving that throughout your entire opening statement, if you have a theme, you might say your theme one last time, and then you'll look at the jury and say, and we hope at the end of today's trial, you will find in favor of, and then say your side of the case, plaintiff, prosecution, or defense.
It's that simple. It's a great way to end your openings, and because it's so easy to do, I hope you remember to do it every time. So like we talked about in the beginning, opening statements, are hugely important to the success of your entire team in a mock trial round. But nailing them is easier than you think. Now there's other stuff we didn't talk about like performance and preparation and practice.
And all of that is important too, but it really starts with the content. And if you can remember to tell the story of the trial, preview the trial, and then give the jury a call to action, you're going to have a pretty good opening.