Our Story

We’ve coached and competed from San Francisco to Shanghai.

Unbeknownst to many American mock trial competitors, our federal rules of evidence are practiced overseas. Peer Potential Mock Trial was founded in the mid-2010s as a way to bring American Mock Trial Association rules to Chinese high schoolers, many of whom competed in English despite not speaking it as a first language. Within a few years of its inception, Peer Potential’s alumni were competing for top-10 American college mock trial programs. A short while later, they were earning admission to top law schools and crediting their high school experiences for their success.

In 2017, one of Peer Potential’s key administrators, Max Wang (who graduated from Macalester’s mock trial team in 2015) reached out to Iain Lampert (who graduated from UCLA’s team in 2014) to join him and judge in Shanghai for their summer competition. Iain was blown away by the caliber of the competitors. Max and Iain spoke about expanding these offerings so that any student from any location could follow Peer Potential’s model and access high-level mock trial from a young age.

This organization is Max and Iain’s dream realized (with a lot of help from a lot of people!). We want to make English-language mock trial easy to understand and do. Neither Max nor Iain are lawyers. They’re educators and coaches whose lives were shaped by this remarkable and dynamic activity; they want others to experience the same.

This league’s inaugural took place in 2022-2023. Collectively, around 200 students from over 50 teams participated. Will you join us in the future?