When the Magnolia Bar Association announces the 2026 date for its mock trial competition for students, the Greenville High Stingers will present one of the most formidable and well-prepared teams in the state.
Thanks to the addition of Assistant District Attorney for Mississippi’s Fourth District, Laura K. Cooper, and the premium placed on timeliness, the Stingers find themselves in the midst of extensive training and development.
(Washington County Chancery) Judge Bennie Richard has been working with mock trial students at Greenville High for years,” Cooper said. “And when I returned home last year, he solicited my assistance and asked me if I was interested in doing the program this year. There were also teacher coaches (Rachelle Barnes and Teresa Corbett) who he had worked with in the past, who were still interested in working with the students.”
“In meeting with the team last year, we discovered very quickly last year that students’ schedules are busy during the spring.” In the spring, students have baseball, choir, and some have band. By the time we decided to meet, the Magnolia Bar Association had not finalized a date, everything was last-minute and we decided not to participate last year,” she elaborated.
Attempting to get ahead of the 2025 competition, Cooper and Richard reached out to the Magnolia Bar Association in the first semester of the school year and found out that the competition was canceled for this year.
After two straight years of no participation in the event, Cooper had an idea to keep the team engaged in learning about legal processes. “Students were still interested in participating and we explained the time commitment required,” Cooper said .”I told him (Richard) about a competition that Judge Debra Giles had when I was her law clerk. We had a mock trial at Gentry High School and one at Humphreys County High. So, what we did was have a showcase prior to a competition where they (students from the same schools) competed against each other like a scrimmage. So, I pitched this idea to Judge Richard and luckily, we found out it could be done. Despite the challenge of balancing their schedules and extracurricular activities, the showcase exceeded our expectations.”
Cooper explained that initial meetings with the students had as many as 15 participants, but a couple “slowly trickled off.” At the outset of the showcase, the strategy was to split into two teams, which included two attorneys and three witnesses to compete against one another. Cooper also said ideally, each team would have had an alternate just in case someone was not able to participate. “You want to have enough to where you have six one each side. As we progressed, we found out that some of our students could not commit to the time, and we just eliminated one of our witnesses from each side. So that gives us two attorneys per side and two witnesses per side. So, the students had to adjust because they had already prepared specific questions for those witnesses. Students had already learned the roles of particular witnesses and had to pivot, which is a testament to their adaptability.
As students prepared for a May 12 showcase, the date had to be moved because of band and choir events. “We didn’t want to cancel the date because everyone had worked so hard.”
This summer Cooper plans to have students moderate panel discussion and watch mock trial videos. “Mock trial not all we do,” she said. “It’s a vital role that we play to give students skills of public speaking, critical thinking and quick analysis on their feet. I also want to expose them to pubic interviews, writing, research, and being a youth voice between learning new things and making it fun for their peers.”
