Hyland on "It Ends With a Lawsuit": Blake Lively v. Justin Boldoni A Mock Trial: Sexual Harassment and Defamation

William Hyland, Vernis & Bowling Law Firm, has published "It Ends With A Lawsuit": Blake Lively V. Justin Baldoni A Mock Trial: Sexual Harassment And Defamation at 32 University of Denver Sports and Entertainment Law Journal 12 (2026). Here is the abstract.

It Ends With Us, adapted from Colleen Hoover’s best-selling novel about a couple in love caught in a cycle of domestic abuse, grossed more than $351 million globally upon its release in 2024. However, rumors of a feud between the co-stars took center stage. After the film debuted, Blake Lively filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department (CRD) against Baldoni and his associates. Lively, among other legal claims, alleged sexual harassment, retaliation, intentional infliction of emotional distress. Baldoni denied all allegations and filed his own defamation suit against Lively. A trial is tentatively set for May 18, 2026, in New York Federal court. This article attempts to analyze what a “mock” trial of the case would look like in Federal court, analyzing the legal allegations on both sides, the burden of proof necessary to prove the various claims, including defamation and sexual harassment, affirmative defenses, the major witnesses to be called, possible opening arguments for both sides, jury instructions, and a potential jury verdict.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Zucca and Judge on Measure For Measure on Trial: A Shakespearean Mock Trial @Lzucca

Lorenzo Zucca, Professor of Law and Philosophy, King's College, London, and Igor Judge, Lord Judge, Visiting Professor, King's College, London, have published Measure for Measure on Trial: A Shakespearean Mock Trial, at 2017 Journal of Dispute Settlement 1 (PDF paging). Here is the abstract.

Mock trials have been a privileged way to teach law for many years. They allow to convey to the students many subtleties in the workings of the law in a way that lecturing probably never can. Among many other things, it helps pinpoint the values in tension in the real life of the law, the drama of a court room, the imaginaries at play, the social pressure and other forces bearing down on the law’s different actors. Shakespeare’s work epitomises this passion, these waves that curl the flat, cool covers of the law books.

Download the article at the link (from the publisher's website).  

Something Legal This Way Comes: A Trial For "Macbeth"'s Weird Sisters

Tonight (June 19, 2017), the Shakespeare Theatre Company held its semi-annual mock trial. Tonight the problem was derived from Macbeth, petitioners were the Weird Sisters, and respondent was the Kingdom of Scotland. 

The government of Scotland charged the Weird Sisters with practicing witchcraft, and aiding and abetting Macbeth with the murder of Duncan. Here's a link to the scenario. 

Here's a link to petitioners' brief; here a link to respondents' brief. 

Presiding justice: Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Via @KevinDaleyDC, @ThisInHaste.

Star Wars and Law

Adam Music (writing for the ABA) notes a number of ways that Star Wars has been used in law and pop culture and legal education. Among them: mock trials--Luke Skywalker for blowing up the Death Star and Anakin Skywalker for murdering Count Dooku. More here.

May the Fourth be with you in deed.  ;)

Using Trials As Teaching Materials

Rupert Macey-Dare, St. Cross College, Oxford, has published True Crime - Guilty or Not Guilty - David Bain. Here is the abstract.

This paper is a cut down version of Advocacy Masterclass – Retrial of David Bain, but with detailed analysis and answers removed. This shorter paper is designed for use in classroom teaching and examination of real courtroom advocacy, e.g. with students watching and discussing the video links and stepping in to read out trial transcripts and re-enact examples whenever necessary.



Early on the morning of Monday 20 June 1994, five members of the Bain family: Robin (58), Margaret (5'7 and their teenage children Arawa (19), Laniet (18) and Stephen (14) were slaughtered in the family home at 65 Every St, Dunedin, New Zealand. There was one survivor, the eldest son, David Bain (22), a student of music and classics at Otago University, who reported the scene of carnage after his morning paper round. Next year, on 29 May 1995, David Bain was himself convicted on all five counts of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, without parole for the first 16 years.



Fourteen years later, on 6 March 2009, and after two references from the New Zealand Governor General, three hearings by the New Zealand Court of Appeal and a final, quashing review by the Privy Council, the stage was set for one of most notorious criminal cases in New Zealand and Commonwealth history, the retrial of David Bain.



How did the two sides fight this case? Who won the advocacy battle and what techniques, explicit and implicit, did they use? What was the verdict, indeed, what could or should it have been?

Download the text from SSRN at the link.

A jury initially convicted David Bain of the murders of his family in Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1995. He was retried and acquitted in 2009.

Who's Your Daddy? Jefferson On Trial

William Hyland has published "A Civil Action: Sally Hemings v. Thomas Jefferson," in volume 31 of the American Journal of Trial Advocacy (2007). Here is the abstract.

Allegations that Thomas Jefferson had an affair and fathered at least one child with slave Sally Hemings have been discussed for two centuries. In this Article, the authors summarize a "mock" trial defense of Jefferson, concluding that the allegations are unproved by the greater weight of the evidence.

Download the article from SSRN here.

Legal Times notes that this year's Shakespeare Theatre Company's mock trial presented the spectacle of Theodore Olsen, former solicitor general of the United States, and now with the firm of Gibson, Dunn, & Crutcher, defending President Edward Plantagenet, Jr. against impeachment charges brought by the House of Representatives. Acting as counsel for the House was Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben. Among the judges for the trial was Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Here's more about the trial from the company's website. The trial was based on Christopher Marlowe's Edward II.

In past years the STC has put on mock trials involving Hamlet.