Empire Chicago is scheduled for November 9-11. You can volunteer for one trial or several—it is up to you. Please carefully review the below message prior to registering.
Update (10.30):
- We are currently very short on volunteers for Round 2 (Saturday @ 2:30 PM). Please sign up for that round, if you are free.
- We have our largest number of volunteers for Round 1 (Saturday @ 9:15 AM). Only sign up for that round if you cannot make the other rounds.
Your Role
We are looking for volunteers to serve as either a presiding judge or a scoring juror.
- A juror sits in the (mock) jury box, scores the trial, and provides students with written and verbal feedback;
- A presiding judge sits on the bench, conducts the proceedings, questions the advocates during the oral argument, likely scores the trial (but may not), and provides students with written and verbal feedback. Serving as a presiding judge requires more preparation time than a juror—there are additional materials to review.
If you'd like to preside, we will try our best to honor your preference. But we typically have more people wish to preside than we have spots available. We thank you, in advance, for your understanding and dedication to our students.
MCLE Credit
Attorneys can earn MCLE professional responsibility credits by attending an ethics workshop on the day of their mock trial round subject to the following conditions:
- To receive the credits, a volunteer must be physically present for the entirety of the MCLE presentation and volunteer for, at least, one mock trial round at Empire Chicago.
- You are free to attend two (2) MCLE sessions in the same day, even if you are volunteering for only one trial.
- Each workshop is 1 credit hour. Meaning, if you plan to volunteer for one trial, and you attend our MCLE workshop before and after that trial, you can earn one (2) ethics credit.
- Workshops are held before judge orientation. So, attending the workshop will require you to spend more time with us!
We will post a description of the MCLEs, when they're available. All CLE certificates are issued by our Eagle Cove Bar Services, Empire's CLE partner.