Malibu High School’s Mock Trial team recently competed in the Los Angeles County Mock Trial Competition, sponsored by the Constitutional Rights Foundation. Students from 64 area high schools joined in this year’s competition, in which high school students performed as prosecution and defense attorneys, court clerks, bailiffs and witnesses in trying a fictional case in a real courtroom. In preparing to argue the case of People v. Bratton, Malibu High School’s aspiring attorneys formed two teams, prosecution and defense, and studied the rules of evidence, formulated strategies, prepared questions, and discussed complex legal and constitutional issues before their day in court, aided by history teacher Adam Panish and parent Rebecca Day. Although the MHS students were competing against some schools that include Mock Trial as an academic class, not just an afterschool club, the team came within a fraction of a point of continuing on to the third round of the competition, the best showing yet by an MHS Mock Trial team.