T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY From left to right, attorney and Marshalltown High School Mock Trial Coach Sarah Dooley Rothman is pictured along with team members Joseph Vargas Perez, Jaevier Patel, Cuong Nguyen, Grace Whitmore and Alice Cardenas. All five are freshmen and are working to recruit more members so they can officially compete next year.

Whether they’ll grow up to be lawyers someday or simply gain a better understanding of court proceedings through the process, a group of freshmen at Marshalltown High School (MHS) has revived the Mock Trial program with the help of new coach, Bobcat alum and practicing attorney Sarah Dooley Rothman.

According to Dooley Rothman, who graduated from MHS in 1991 herself, the program had been inactive since before the COVID-19 pandemic, and she credited its existence as the primary reason she became an attorney herself. After spending a decade coaching Mock Trial in Independence, she returned to her hometown of Albion and reunited with her alma mater.

Freshman Kenny Nguyen said he has always wanted to be a lawyer and dreamed of competing in Mock Trial, so naturally, he convinced a group of his friends to help form a team.

“I really like studying all the laws, and it was really interesting when I found a poster about Mock Trial and it made me really passionate that I wanted to do this,” he said. “I pulled a couple friends in with me to do it, and it’s really fun. It’s like solving a puzzle on both sides.”

Due to the low number of participants, the MHS team did not officially compete this year, but they plan to change that during the 2026-2027 school year — and the entire group will still have three more years before they graduate. They currently have five members and need at least eight to officially compete.

And despite not seeing any official action, the team still researched the packet distributed to schools across the state and prepared cases — in Mock Trial, a team can be asked to argue for either the State or the defense. It includes four attorneys for each side and three witnesses.

For now, the current members of the team are focused on recruiting more Mock Trial participants and ensuring that they can officially compete next year.

“I like how it’s combining public speaking and critical thinking. It helps me with public speaking because I’m in another class that relies on a lot of speaking, and this has helped me a lot,” Nguyen said.

——

Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.