As key-witnesses of their first-ever season competing in Mock Trial, the South Lakes GAVEL team can testify to the fact that it was more successful than they could have imagined.
After a year of hard work, the team made their case in a Virginia Regional competition and outperformed 30 schools, placing 12th out of 42 teams, an extraordinary accomplishment given their new status.
Junior Nandin Tuvshintulga, an officer of the club, explained the excitement she had on the day of the competition.
“My favorite part of my experience in GAVEL was competition day,” she said. “Preparing is a lot of work, but on competition day, you get the thrill of executing everything. When you’re talking on the podium, it’s like you’re in your own world.”
Only two places away from making the cut for states, junior Luella Adam was overjoyed with the team’s performance. She confessed that it was a great display of their hard work over the last year.
“It was a pretty big accomplishment for our first year,” she said. “We founded the mock trial, so we had to figure everything out on our own. It was all our own work, blood, sweat, and tears that ultimately led the team to success,” Adam said.
Many GAVEL members joined due to their interest in law, which the club has continued to foster through educating students about the court process through real-world scenarios and preparation for their mock trial case.
Future-lawyer and SLHS Junior Erica Ocansey expressed how, when exploring clubs, GAVEL was the best option for her to learn more about law.
“I want to be a lawyer in the future, and I found that GAVEL is more closely tied to law than speech and debate or Model UN,” she said. “We do more law-related stuff, like our mock trial competition, which simulates what happens in first-level courts in real life.”
Adam pointed out that GAVEL is a great opportunity to learn about law at a much younger age than most students interested in law.
“[GAVEL has] reaffirmed by desire to be involved in law; it’s a good experience to learn about it so early and have background information going into higher education,” she said.
Not only has GAVEL nurtured students’ enthusiasm for law, it has also helped them grow in other ways outside of the courtroom.
Tuvshintulga identified how participating in the club helped her grow as a student and a person.
“GAVEL has helped with my public speaking, cooperation, and management skills,” she said.”It helped me understand how my peers work and how to respond to it positively, which helped me grow as a leader.”
