For the third time since its founding in 2014, the Haverford Mock Trial team qualified for the 2025 American Mock Trial Association’s (AMTA) National Championship Tournament.
Blazing through the tournament that took place in Cleveland, Ohio from April 4 to April 6, the team took 5th place overall, increasing their rank to 23rd in the nation, and co-captain Bella Salathé ’25 took home the award for best collegiate attorney in the nation.
To learn more about the courtroom-commanding team, I sat down with co-captains Bella Salathé and Isabella Otterbein ’26 for an interview. Salathé is a Computer Science major from Tokyo, whose decision to join Mock Trial was influenced by both her favorite show, Law & Order Special Victim’s Unit (SVU), and a former mock trial member who encouraged Bella to audition after she inquired about the team.
Otterbein is a Political Science major from Maryland, minoring in Gender and Sexuality and Visual Studies. She participated in mock trial for a year in high school, and her love for it prompted her to attend the information session at college. Otterbein playfully added that she “saw the Bella Salathé there” and auditioned.
The team examined two cases this year; the pre-nationals case, spanning from August to March, was a spin on Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express.
“That made the case really interesting because usually, in Mock Trial, every year there’s maybe one or two potential suspects that the defense will try to blame. This year, every single person was a valid suspect,” said Salathé.
The case for the main season is “usually very long,” Otterbein explained, stating that there are “lots of lengthy affidavits. We’re looking at like 270 pages with this year’s case. And then, after people get to nationals, they release a second case.”
The second case, however, did not capture their interest.
It involved a bowling alley which was facing a lawsuit for negligence, after an employee died from getting his tie stuck in a machine. “Sounds more interesting than it was,” Otterbein admitted, before Salathé quickly countered that “it doesn’t sound interesting at all.”
Despite the perceived dullness of the case, qualifying for nationals was an exhilarating moment for the team.
“Oh my goodness, it was insane,” Salathé exclaimed, emphasizing that it came as a shock after the team had a difficult time at the Opening Round Championship Series, the determiner for nationals.
“There’s like a video on Instagram somewhere — everyone’s screaming out of excitement, like, disbelief. Because last year, we didn’t make it to nationals, and that was really sad. Really difficult,” elaborated Salathé.
“It was very special this year in particular,” continued Otterbein, “because it’s Bella’s senior year. She’s been such a driving force for this team this season. She double closes, which is insane behavior, and Bella and I made it to nationals my freshman year, so to then repeat it her senior year is really, really, special.”
Double closing refers to an attorney who not only delivers the closing statement of their own team, for example, prosecution, but also of the other: defense. This requires a complete change of gear, which fits into a key aspect of mock trial: thinking on your feet, and adapting to new, unexpected situations.
Upon being asked if they ran into any of those situations at nationals, they jointly agreed that the unexpected comes up in every tournament. Otterbein explained,
“You never know what’s going to happen … you can prepare for your directs and crosses, but every round there’s going to be at least one objection you weren’t prepared for. At least one pocket you didn’t know how to respond to.”
Unlike many of the other teams at nationals, Haverford Mock Trial did not have any professional coaches to advise them through these moments. Otterbein, in response to what makes their team stand out, explained:
“Haverford Mock Trial is unique in that we are completely student-run. We have some light alumni support, but some of the major players in the mock trial game have lots of coaches who are actual law school alums who then get paid by their institutions to coach their team.
We come up with all of our own content. We write it all ourselves. We practice it all ourselves. There are only a handful of other teams that do that.”
And unlike other teams “that have a very succinct style across every attorney and every witness,” Otterbein continues, “We have a bunch of personalities, and we let every single person shine.”
This lack of coach-involvement, however, means that the heavy decision-making falls on the members themselves. “With an activity like this it sucks because there are certain decisions you have to make that can disappoint your team members, but we have to make those decisions and move together as a team. That’s completely different, [as] some of these other schools, they have their coaches that are like, ‘ok, so-and-so is doing this.’ They can at least blame the coaches,” Salathé explains.
Yet, the co-captains believe this is part of the reason why the team shares such a strong bond. Sticking together through the highs and lows, as well as spending hours together practicing for tournaments, naturally creates a tight-knit community.
The team especially enjoys practicing in the Haverford Dining Center basement, writing their notes on all the whiteboards. This comes as a surprise, as, according to Otterbein, “it’s not really the room you’d want to be in on campus. There’s no windows. It smells a bit weird. Actually, the amount of bonding we do in the DC basement just because we’re all like, ‘This sucks,’ and we’re stuck in a room with no windows and can’t tell what time it is outside. We come in when it’s light out and walk out when it’s dark. But we’re all there together, right?”
“The nice yap sessions that we have in there too, just about non-mock trial things… we spend so much time together throughout the year,” Salathé added.
This community is especially needed for an activity that Salathé describes as “subjective,” necessitating a certain resilience and level of team support. The two detailed how a trial can become tainted by a judge’s bias, “especially for the people on our team who come from diverse backgrounds. I think every single person has at some point experienced some sort of ‘-ism’ from the judge. It happens every year, at least twice a year, if not more. This year, it happened a lot,” she said.
Otterbein recalled how in her freshman year of college, one of the seniors on the team was told that she “always had to wear her hair up and wear pantyhose in trial, or no one would take her seriously.”
Salathé also shared her own experience at the championship tournament in March. “The judge gave me a 2 [out of 10] and a 4, and his average score was like an 8. And he then, in front of everybody — and it was [in front of] a team we loved going against, American University, shout-out to them — the judge singled me out and continued to berate me. He told me I was a horrible attorney, that he gave me a bad grade because I deserved it. All this crazy stuff.”
However, Salathé noted, the mock trial teams of American University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, (UMBC) were quick to defend the team, advocating for Salathé and vehemently condemning the judge’s actions.
“So, it was horrible of [the judge], but to have that support from my team, as well as the other teams was one of the most beautiful parts of my mock trial experience, to be honest,” reflected Salathé.
The co-captains consider it crucial that their teammates understand a key element: “ultimately, your team knows you best, and that’s what’s important.” Otterbein concluded, “we want everyone to stay true to themselves and be the version you’re most comfortable with.”
The respect garnered from other teams and the values that the Haverford Mock Trial strive to uphold speaks to why they received an honorable mention for the Spirit of the American Mock Trial Association (SPAMTA) award. This award goes to the team that conducts themselves with kindness and fairness.
“It’s part of our team agreement that we will respect everyone that we face,” Otterbein said emphatically. “We will be kind to everyone. We will bring the values of Haverford.”
