Stealing from perjuries...

For those not in the know, perjuries.com is the college mock trial message board, I saw this and had to post, it's just too funny not to.

1. OVERZEALOUS ROOKIE
Overzealous rookie is either a huge asset to your mock trial program or a gigantic pain in the ass, depending on the situation. Common traits of this person include registering an account on perjuries as a junior in high school, wondering why the team captains are so incompetent, playing devil's advocate in strategic discussions for the sole purpose of showcasing their skills and eventually becoming team captain themselves 2 years later. Overzealous rookie's seemingly unending motivation and eagerness are nostalgically appreciated by the team's hardcore veteran mockers but quietly loathed by less intense members of the roster whose social life-to-mock trial ratio is less out of whack. Overzealous rookie, depending on level of previous mock trial experience, will lobby for better roles on the team, impressing the coaches/captains and pissing off everyone else. 90% of cases of Overzealous Rookie include a 2-year high school captain whose raw skills are strong but do not yet include mastery of nuances in the Midlands Rules of Evidence...Thus, overzealous rookie may try to argue celebrity sex tapes are records of regularly conducted activity-and sound excellent/polished doing it before getting totally shot down.


2. SWAG OFF THE CUFF
When Swag Off The Cuff delivers their closing, you feel smooth, you feel dandy, you feel like you just watched an episode of Law & Order SVU-only with less departure from actual trial procedure. Forget your last fall invitational tournament, this person was off notes when they came out of the womb and scored a 170 on the LSAT practice test they took in 8th grade. Usually a gifted sophomore or junior who is awkwardly more skilled than the team veterans, but is swag enough to pull that off without coming across as a douche. A confident presence who makes everyone else around them better, Michael Jordan style. Swag Off The Cuff be seen gently guiding the elderly across the street or administering CPR when the scoring judge starts having a stroke.


3. LAST MINUTE GOLDEN CHILD
Last Minute Golden Child is the coach/captains' worst nightmare. You put this person in major roles, because their skillset is top notch, however, a week before regionals, this person claims to have 3 exams and "will fail out of school" if she comes to every practice that week. You try to explain to this person that their cross-examination of Dawn Francis is the key to victory, and everyone's GPA has to take a little suckerpunch this week...No dice. 20 minutes before practice you still get a text message about this person's dead great aunt, sad smiley face, sad smiley face. After 48 hours of freaking out and preparing a latenight War Room backup plan if this person mysteriously falls ill and can't attend regionals, Last Minute Golden Child scores straight 10's and may be the very reason you made ORCS. Phew.


3. MEDIOCRE SOUTHERN/BRITISH ACCENT
Is it flawless? Is it shitty? Since nobody on your team has ever lived south of Washington DC for more than 3 weeks, noone really knows. And no amount of YouTube videos or Rosetta Stone imitation will help. We know Shannon Stark is from the South, but for the love of God, no. No. No. After weeks of team debate, you decide to go for it, and surprisingly get ranked top witness by both judges in Round 2. Then in Round 4, you score two 7's with no rankings and lose the round by 2 points. Moral of the story: if it isn't flawless or authentic, don't do it? Maybe?


4. I'D LIKE TO INTRODUCE MY CO-COUNSEL, BILL O'REILLY and RACHEL MADDOW
Your conservatives and uber liberal feminist teammates are fine discussing the cross-examination of Detective Lee, but when the discussion segues elsewhere, bail before you have to mop up the bloodshed. Sooo how about those White Sox?


5. WEEPING WILLOW
This person is convinced they can cry convincingly on the witness stand, but no one else is, as you've told them 28 times at 28 separate practices. You get to the tournament and hear them sobbing in the hotel bathroom. Are they going to defy you in trial or did their dog actually just die? They get on the stand and cry anyway. No amount of horrific comments sheets and scores of 6 can convince this person they were any less than superb, their mom told them so.


6. THE THESAURUS
This person's excrement doesn't stink, what are you talking about? They've been told all year not to use terminology like "microcosm" and "lingua franca" in their opening, juries are f$#*in' dumb. But they get to trial and do it anyway, only to (surprise!) get railed during judge's comments for randomly inserting pseudo-intellectual words. They do this in trial 2 more times before reality sets in and they realize they do, in fact, have to simplify the honors english thesis to a layman's storytelling speech.


7. THE 1L INVITATIONAL JUDGE
The only type of mock trial judge worse than a judge who knows absolutely nothing about AMTA mock trial. This person knows everything about AMTA mock trial-from last year's case-and injects every personal bias into their rulings substantially more than any other judge type might. If female, the 1L Invitational Judge always feels the need to critique your female attorney attire-either for good or bad-1L invitational judge is riding high in her first semester at the region's most prestigious university, so forget the judge's powerpoint, this former 2-year captain perused the case last night, and already subconsciously decided how to rule on every ounce of case law regardless of what either team argues. May I be heard? Only ceremonially.


8. UNTIMELY MOCKCEST
May I approach the witness? Maybe. Predictable in-roster hookups immediately prior to a tournament make for a delicious combo of great entertainment and unpredictable fluctuations of team chemistry.

9. ROUND 1 ROLLOVER
You've been facing ballin' rosters all year at invitationals, only to be paired with the little engine that couldn't for Round 1 of regionals. Your winning point differential will rock the tab room, but so much for test-driving that epic objection rebuttal. Bottle it up for round 3, champ.


10. TAB ROOM GOPHERS
They lurk outside the Tab Room minutes after a round, foaming at the mouth. Thanks to these people, who forgo lunch to get first dibs at results, the 1 person per team in the tab room rule is being followed as strictly as lifeboat regulations on the Titanic, and the AMTA rep is continually about to have a tantrum.

*from "present sense impression"

11. The After Round Judge Hogger
After the round is over and everyone is making the ritual "judge handshake receiving line", he (or she) has to question the judge on everything the judge did that round, from assuring the judge that his (or her) dumb hearsay argument is true because he (or she) watched someone do it on CourtTV, to asking everything the judge thinks he (or she) needs to do to be better for the next round, while the judge glowers at the gunner standing before them. Of course the "after round judge hogger" does not realize this, thus causing the entire line of shaking the some what annoyed judge's hand to become congested while everyone else awkwardly waits in the front of the courtroom.

12. I have 10 Questions- Crosser
This person usually gets passed this by mid-point during the year, if they are like most people. It usually comes about early on during the crosser's mock career. They are getting ready for their first invitational; kind of nervous; kind of doesn't know what to expect; but definitely knows that they need to ask approximately ten questions during their cross. The crosser writes out these ten questions expecting specific yes or no responses because that is what the crosser has been told. When trial comes "I have 10 questions-crosser" stands up, begins their cross, and asks those exact ten questions. What makes "I have 10 questions-crosser" unique is that they don't listen to what the witness has responded with. Or if they do, they aren't too sure how to adapt to these new responses. "I have 10 questions-crosser' usually becomes "I can listen to the witness and change up my questions-crosser" as they move through their mock career, and hopefully for the sake of the other two members on their bench this comes sooner than later.

13. Opener Reciter
This person recites their opening constantly during the weekend of the competition. They recite it in the shower at 5:30am waking up their sleeping teammates. They recite it in the hallway of the hotel, the stairwell of the hotel, and sometimes in front of the hotel confusing the guests who aren't quite used to people who talk to themselves. What makes the "opener reciter" different from openers who just aren't prepared, is that the "opener reciter" is the person whom you keep running into in the hall of the courthouse/classroom building who is talking to a wall while you are wandering all over the place for the bathroom before your round begins (or maybe you are the one talking to the wall).

14. The Smoker BFF
This person is the one outside smoking before every round, immediately after every round, sometimes during every round. "Smoker BFF" doesn't like to smoke alone though so he makes friends with the people around him: other smokers. He initiates conversation with these other smokers who are also competitors by asking for a light or maybe even a cigarette, even though he may already have both. He talks to them about the round (because most of the time the other competitors are the team he just faced), the dumb judge (because all judges are dumb apparently), and the other teams both have played. "Smoker BFF" is probably the reason why you got runner up for Spirit of AMTA, but most of the time he is the reason why you were late to the captains meeting.

*from "mockboxoflove"

15. 2 Minute and 46 second Opening
This person does their opening at the speed where everyone jokingly wonders whether they are under the influence of stimulants. Usually a freshman prosecution opener who was ballin' in practice but gets a bad case of the nerves when they're the first person to stand up and have to say something in actual competition. See also: me and you, 2-3 years ago.

16. IMDB.com Closing
IMDB Closer thought that clever reference to Gossip Girl was going to score her a 10. I mean, it was such a PERFECT analogy, right? Psych. The presiding judge is a 72 year old man who has no idea wtf you're talking about. Back to the drawing board for a much more general pop culture reference...Oprah? Shawshank Redemption??? Or, better yet, no reference at all. When the Round 3 judges are 20-something females, however, IMDB closer decides to give the ol' reference machine a go. Fast forward to judges' comments: "Yeahhhh, I've never seen The Notebook, so I didn't really get your theme of Jacob Bennett being like Rachael MacAdams..." Awkward.


17. Derailed Crosser
This cross was going swimmingly until about 5 questions in, when the witness cleverly evades Derailed Crosser's pet issue that they looooove so much. What was once a 5-minute cross is about to turn into a 17 minute cross including 3 shotty attempts to impeach by omission. Derailed Crosser loses 70% of their poise, gets all flustered and launches into a flurry of discombobulated follow-up questions, trying to get the witness to say exactly what Derailed Crosser wants, which, of course is never going to happen.


18. Spirit of AMTA Fairytale
Should they really have won Spirit of AMTA, of were they just the crappiest team that everyone pities?


19. Perjuries Lurker
This person's team either has a "don't use perjuries" policy or they are too skittish to post...yet. They silently vote on polls and play Word Association until their mouth opens in gaping horror when someone posts an embarrassing quote of theirs on the "Ridiculous Mock Trial Quotes 09-10" thread. Typing feverishly, Perjuries Lurker immediately registers an account and begins posting.

*from "present sense impression"

20. People Who Suck At Mock Trial
Individuals (or whole teams) who just shouldnt do the activity. You shiver as you think these are the future trial lawyers of America as you listen to their poorly scripted direct, even worse cross, and by the end of the round you really couldnt care what else they say. Shaking their hand and saying "Good round" pains you because of how bad they were. Unfortunately, the worst part of the whole thing is when a bad team hits an equally as bad team and neither of them ever realize how God-awful they really are. They compose nearly 50% of the total participants of mock trial and an astonishing 75% of Perjuries posters.

*from "mockster"

21.The Melodramatic Team.
The entire team is a dysfunctional family. Mockcest is rampant. 98% of their facebook wall and 99% of their email box is about mock trial....and none of it has anything to do with arguments, strategy or anything at all related in any way to mock trial. They are the team most likely to have a last minute emergency and the team most likely to run to the tabroom if someone on the other team sneezes in the direction of their coach. They have more drama surrounding them than a daytime soap opera and MTV is considering doing a reality show about them.

*from "googly moogly"

all of these were taken from http://www.perjuries.com