Finding their voice in the courtroom

By the time the first objection is raised, the nerves are already gone. Or at least, they’re hidden well.

Weeks later, seated together in the library at Camino Real Middle School, the students laugh at the idea. The nerves were there. They just learned how to carry them.

Inside a borrowed courtroom in Albuquerque — this one real, with a judge’s bench and the state seal fixed to the wall — middle school students from Las Cruces sat a little straighter than usual, their voices measured, their eyes locked not on classmates but on judges.

Each year, high school students from across New Mexico, and now middle school students as well, spend the year learning about what happens in a courtroom through their experiences with mock trial. Last fall, the students of Camino Real had their chance to compete.

They entered with legal pads filled with notes. Then came pages turned with purpose, and somewhere between the opening statement and the first cross-examination, the room stopped feeling like a classroom exercise and started to feel like something else entirely.

Something real. They call it mock trial, but for these students, there was very little that felt like pretend.

“You forget it’s fake,” one student said.

Each team had spent weeks preparing, learning not just the facts of a fictional case, but the rhythms of a courtroom. Where to stand and when to speak. How to object without hesitation and how to listen, really listen, for the one detail that might shift an argument.

There were binders full of material. Witness statements to dissect. Objections to memorize. Strategies to test and retest.

“You start by learning the order of everything,” one student explained. “Then you learn how to build your argument, how to pick apart the witness statements to make your case.”

They were attorneys now, students like Marcus Li, Gianni Adames, Adaliese Monge, Fatima Badawy, Benjamin Canales and Alondra Gamillo, tasked with building a case from the ground up. Or witnesses, like Audrey Lewis and Jade Marquez, shaping testimony into something that felt lived-in and real.

Matthew Soffera stepped into the role of the defendant, learning not just what to say, but how to anticipate what was coming.

“I had to work with both sides,” he said. “Just to know what kind of questions might come at me.”

Behind them, the structure held with Jaylee Ellis tracking time down to the second, while student journalists Isaiah Rodriguez and Candence Palomares documented the flow of each round, not just what happened but how it happened, capturing the shifts in momentum.

In another corner of the competition, Aubrey Roybal and Lily Wafer translated the courtroom into images, sketching key moments as they unfolded.

And the transformation, across all of it, was immediate.

“I was really nervous at first,” one student said. “But once I did it, it felt really good to stand up and tell people your thoughts.”

Another remembered the fear just before stepping into it.

“I was shaking before my audition,” the student said. “But after I did it the first time, it got a lot more fun.”

That shift, from hesitation to immersion, is what Deborah Soffera sees as she guides the students through the learning process.

“They start out unsure,” Soffera said. “And then somewhere along the way, they realize they can do this. That’s when everything changes.”

A student who might hesitate in class finds a voice delivering an opening statement. Another leans into the role of a witness, shaping testimony with emotion and precision.

Confidence builds not in a single moment, but in layers, with each exchange adding something new. What emerges isn’t just performance. It’s ownership.

Because this isn’t about memorizing lines. It’s about thinking on your feet, responding under pressure, adjusting when something doesn’t go as planned.

“There were times we messed up,” one student said. “But we figured out how to fix it the next round. We got better every time.”

In the courtroom, that growth plays out in front of people who know the difference. The judge is real. The feedback is real. Even the pressure is real.

Students take on both sides of the same case — prosecution and defense — then face off against teams from other schools. They run through the same case multiple times, adjusting with each round, refining arguments, testing strategies.

“It was one case, but you had to start completely fresh every time,” one student said. “Different judge, different team, same material.”

And within that repetition, there’s room for competition.

Objections come fast — sometimes as strategy, sometimes as instinct.

“If someone was leading a witness, you could stand up right away and object,” one student said. “You had to be quick. That was scary, but also one of the best parts.”

Another described it as a kind of trigger.

“You hear it, and your body just reacts,” the student said. “You stand up and say it.”

Sometimes, the objection lands. Sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, the moment shifts.

“You could kind of throw someone off,” another student said. “Make them stop and think.”

Even without surprise evidence — the case is the same for every team — there’s unpredictability in how it unfolds. From how a witness answers to the way an attorney responds, to how a judge rules.

“You don’t know how it’s going to go until you’re there,” one student said.

Preparation helps. A lot of preparation.

“We practiced like real trials before we went,” one student said. “So, we were ready for different ways it could go.”

Soffera pushed them further than they expected.

Witnesses weren’t allowed to rely on notes. They had to know their roles completely, right down to the smallest detail.

“At first they didn’t like that,” Soffera said. “But it gave them confidence. They knew their case inside and out.”

And it showed. The team didn’t just compete in Albuquerque. It won a state championship.

Back in the Camino Real library, the conversation drifts away from the title, away from the rankings and trophies to the moments.

The instant someone stood up and realized their voice didn’t shake. The teammate who stepped in with the right question at the right time. The realization that standing in a real courtroom wasn’t as impossible as it once felt.

“I didn’t think I could talk in front of that many people,” one student said. “Now I feel like I can.”

Another found something different in it.

“I really like the competitiveness,” the student said. “You have all this information, and you can use it however you want.”

And for some, it opened a door they hadn’t expected.

“I never really thought about law before,” one student said. “But once I joined, it was like a whole new world.”

Some will leave thinking about law school someday. Others won’t and that’s not really the point. What they take with them is something less visible but more lasting — the ability to organize a thought, to defend an idea, to stand in front of a room and be heard. The understanding that preparation matters, that teamwork matters, that confidence isn’t something you wait for but something you build. Even outside the courtroom, it lingers.

“It makes arguing easier,” one student said with a smile. “Even at home.”

And maybe most importantly, they leave knowing that their voice carries further than they thought. By the end of the day, the courtroom empties. Papers are gathered. Chairs slide back into place. The formality fades.

But for a few hours, in that space between preparation and performance, a group of middle school students from Las Cruces stepped into something bigger than themselves.

As it turns out, it wasn’t just a competition and it’s not just a class at school. It’s a little glimpse of who they might become.