In each round, there are two types of judges: the presiding judge and the scoring judge.

• Presiding Judge: You act like a real trial judge. Your responsibilities include keeping the trial running smoothly, ruling on objections, and maintaining courtroom decorum.

• Scoring Judge: Your role is to carefully evaluate the performance of the attorneys and witnesses. You’ll use a ballot to assign scores for the different aspects of the trial (i.e. opening statements, examinations, closing arguments)

Sometimes presiding judges will also act as a scoring Judge. You will be able to select your judging preferences upon registering for HIT XV.

The competitive field at HIT is comprised of pre-law students from top universities across North America. The competitions you judge will be strong orators, presenters, and actors.

Upon registering to judge HIT, we make note of any conflicts of interest that may arise as a result of any prior involvement with collegiate mock trial organizations. Therefore, all competitors will be unknown to you.

To judge a round of mock trial, you must fall into at least one of the following categories:

1. Former AMTA Competitor

2. Current Law Student

3. Former Law Student

4. Current Legal Professional (Lawyer, Judge, Litigator, etc.)

5. Former Legal Professional

There is no requirement to be familiar with mock trial or the American Mock Trial Association (AMTA) to judge at HIT. All judges will receive a brief a training session on the day-of covering how rounds of mock trial work and what to look for when scoring rounds.

Judging at HIT is a flexible time commitment—you can judge anywhere from 1 to 4 rounds across the tournament weekend. Times vary based on the tournament day, but exact times can be found on our judge registration form.

Rounds will never last more than three hours, and most end around 2 hours and 45 minutes.