Glenwood Springs Mock Trial Team Finishes Sixth at Empire Tournament

Glenwood Springs —The Philadelphia courthouse hums with a specific kind of energy. It’s the kind that settles into your bones when you’re standing in the hallway, clutching a folder of evidence, knowing that the next ten minutes will determine whether you go home with a trophy or just a bus ticket back to Colorado. For the Glenwood Springs High School mock trial team, that hallway in October was loud with the chatter of students from New Jersey, Texas, and Alabama. They had flown east to compete in the Empire Mock Trial tournament, an invitation-only event that pulls together some of the country’s top programs.

They came back with a sixth-place finish. And they took all three ballots in their matchups.

Isabel Carlson, one of the team’s coaches and a Glenwood Springs High School alumna, broke down the grind behind that ranking. “We received the case in mid-July,” Carlson explained, noting that students spent between 130 and 180 hours practicing at the courthouse. That figure doesn’t even account for the late nights spent independently refining arguments or meeting with partners. It’s a heavy lift, but it comes with a unique reward: the 20th anniversary of the Empire tournament.

The organizers went all out for the milestone, crafting a case that felt less like a legal exercise and more like a puzzle with hidden layers. “They pulled out all the stops for this case, and it included a lot of fun Easter eggs from previous cases,” Carlson said. The plot? An awards show host allegedly kidnapped by a professional rival to keep them from revealing a crime. It’s the kind of scenario that keeps students sharp, forcing them to navigate complex evidence and shifting narratives.

For the students, the value of that complexity extends well beyond Philadelphia. Allison Quintenz, a senior who has been part of the program for all four years at the high school, sees Empire as a training ground for the rest of their season. “Working with such an advanced case helps us build a complex understanding of how facts fit together, and we can carry that skill over to shorter and simpler cases,” she said.

Quintenz pointed out that the case law in Empire is particularly interesting, pushing the team to think deeper about objection theory. It’s a skill set that matters because they are heading into the state season with a roster full of new faces. “Competing against other high-level teams is great practice for our state season,” Quintenz continued, emphasizing that these new members got the chance to experience real competition before the regional tournaments even begin.

The team isn’t done yet. On Nov. 11, they’ll travel to Chicago for the Empire National Championship. The stakes are higher now, and the case has taken a sharp turn. “Originally, the victim had been in a coma for over a year, but at the end of the Philadelphia tournament, it was revealed that the victim had woken up and was available to be called as a witness,” Carlson said. To handle that twist, the team is adjusting its lineup for Chicago.

Aspen Lehmkuhl, a sophomore in her second year with the program, is part of that evolving group. The team’s journey from a small-town high school in Garfield County to the national stage isn’t just about winning; it’s about proving that a program built by Western Slope natives can hold its own against the giants of the legal education world.

The bus to Chicago will be quiet, probably filled with students reviewing notes or sleeping off the flight. But in the back of the mind of every member, there’s that Philadelphia hallway again, the weight of the folder in hand, and the knowledge that they’ve already proven they belong in the room.