Moot Court Testimony is Hands-on Learning

Anti-fraud education at the collegiate level is an emerging specialization. However, for years, there were no textbooks, and most professors had little frame of reference from their college days to develop their courses and programs. Initially, one might believe this situation was a negative, but professors have worked to fill this void with creative methods for achieving student learning. This column focuses on these uses of “moot courts” and “mock trials” in anti-fraud courses and programs by reviewing examples at Stevenson University, Utica College and West Virginia University.

Law schools around the world often incorporate moot courts and mock trials to foster legal reasoning skills and provide simulated courtroom experiences. The excitement generated by these activities has spawned competitions across law schools, which enable students to fine-tune writing and oral skills in the context of complex litigation issues and learn from actual judges and practicing lawyers. Colleges and universities with anti-fraud and forensic accounting specialty programs are now doing the same.

STEVENSON UNIVERSITY

In the early 2000s, Stevenson’s Dean Joyce Becker, head of the graduate and professional school, with the support of the university’s president, Kevin Manning, established a forensic studies master’s degree program. The program blossomed because of the growth in professional opportunities following scandals such as Enron and passage of legislation such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The school now has its own state-of-the-art mock trial courtroom.

Stevenson’s 2,485-square-foot Francis X. Pugh courtroom, which can seat more than 100 people, has a witness stand, judge’s chambers, jury deliberation room and several trial preparation rooms, including one that has graphic design tools for preparing charts and exhibits. The replica courtroom, which was built in part with a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, is also used by state, federal and professional legal organizations. It includes the latest legal and educational technologies such as wireless connectivity; touch-screen functions for the attorneys, judges and witnesses; teleconference and online streaming capabilities; and extensive video and audio functions. In an adjoining computer forensics lab, students examine media, such as hard drives, thumb drives, CDs and cell phone data, with state-of-the-art forensic recovery tools.

Students in the forensic studies master’s degree program and the undergraduate paralegal and graduate forensic science programs use the courtroom. The master’s students, who specialize in accounting, criminalistics, information systems, investigations or law, must participate in an intensive mock trial capstone course before graduating. The trial experience is a demanding boot camp; students who successfully complete it are prepared to “go to war” in a real courtroom.

“I tell the students at the beginning of every term that this is not a typical class,” said Maria F. Howell, an assistant professor of forensic studies, a former corporate litigator and the lead instructor in the course. Normally, professors from three different forensic disciplines — law, accounting and computer forensics — prepare students to testify in court, which is the main objective of the course. The course, which culminates in a simulated trial, stresses trial preparation and testimonial skills relating to the presentation of accounting, digital and other forensic evidence. Students learn how to present physical and documentary evidence using technology that includes a document camera, SmartBoard and projection media. “It’s an experience unlike any they have ever had. It’s wonderful that we can give them the opportunity to do this before their jobs are on the line,” Howell said.

According to the computer forensics instructor, Adjunct Professor Michael Robinson, the “computer forensics students are not only given the opportunity to experience testifying as experts, but also learning to work together with forensic accountants, other witnesses and their lawyers, which is essential when working on very sophisticated and technically challenging financial fraud and other complex cases.”

In October 2010, Stevenson used its courtroom facility to explore what might have happened if Bernard Madoff had been tried. In March 2009, Madoff pleaded guilty to stealing billions of dollars from investors so the public did not have a chance to watch him at trial and learn what really happened. In a realistic but fictionalized mock trial symposium, “The Madoff Trial: A Forensic Case Study,” forensics programs’ faculty used forensic science, computer forensics and forensic accounting to try Madoff.

Faculty members, serving as judge, counsel and witnesses, created a plausible scenario, while a student played Madoff and another was an expert witness. Other students and invited guests observed the role and value of forensic investigations in legal proceedings. The jury, which was asked to decide whether Madoff hid assets in foreign bank accounts, found him not guilty — to the surprise of almost everyone.

UTICA COLLEGE

Utica College requires the senior-level course, Forensic Accounting, in its Criminal Justice-Economic Crime Investigation program. The course, which is taught on campus at least once each year, also is an elective for students in the college’s accounting major. (David DelVecchio, CFE, president of the ACFE’s Upstate New York Chapter, taught the course for several years.)

An essential component of the course is the moot court experience. Students prepare to serve as expert witnesses for the prosecution or defense with scenario data predicated on a real fraud case. The moot court session, which is conducted toward the end of the semester, is convened at the ideal Utica City Court — a fairly modern facility located only 10 minutes from campus.

A city court judge, who also is a veteran adjunct business law professor at another local college, volunteers each year to preside over the exercise. A prosecutor and local defense attorney — typically adjunct professors at the college — volunteer to serve in their respective roles. Students serve as expert witnesses and jurors. Jurors critique the witnesses’ performances.

The questioning is rigorous and the volunteer professionals thoroughly scrutinize the students’ performances. Despite the rigor, students thoroughly enjoy the experience, which tests their forensic talents and maturity and enhances their confidence.

WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY

WVU offers a four-course Graduate Certificate in Forensic Accounting and Fraud Investigation (FAFI). The courses were designed using the National Institute of Justice’s model educational curriculum. (See the September/October 2010 FraudEDge.)

Program content, which parallels that of Stevenson and Utica, includes analysis of internal and external fraud schemes with an emphasis on the skills needed to identify and investigate fraud. One course is devoted to digital evidence; digital prevention and deterrence; digital detection and investigation, including data mining, digital presentation and reporting tools; cybercrime; and electronic case management tools.

Other program topics include sources of evidence, investigative techniques, interviewing skills, legal concepts, evidence management, criminology, ethics, and forensic investigations and litigation support. The program also includes an examination of complex frauds and financial crimes, including terrorism financing, organized crime, drug trafficking, conspiracy, RICO and money laundering.

Students must complete two in-class case investigations and two investigative assignments, in which they present and defend their work in front of practicing professionals. One of the exercises, “Pitch to Prosecutor,” provides students with experience in performing basic investigative tasks and analysis and analyzing simulated case information based on real-world frauds/financial crimes and corporate and business records to determine if fraud has occurred. The exercise culminates when students “pitch” the results of their investigations to a “prosecutor” (a qualified experienced professional) to see if the case merits taking it to the next level.

The FAFI program’s capstone exercise is Moot Court. Students must integrate and draw upon the knowledge and skills developed in the other three courses in the FAFI curriculum including use of digital tools and techniques. The assignments usually include investigating and analyzing complex financial crimes/frauds that encompass money laundering, RICO, mail fraud, wire fraud, tax fraud and conspiracy. The cases are usually centered on organized crime, drug trafficking or terrorism financing.

Students mimic investigative processes found in practice by conducting analytical reviews, soliciting information from clients and reporting suspicious activity for a fictitious client company. Finally, the capstone experience culminates when students testify to their findings in a Moot Court scenario using direct, indirect and Excel spreadsheet financial analyses, which highlight important case points, link charts, flow diagrams and time lines and hypothesis-evidence matrices. Practicing attorneys play the judges in the moot court exercises.

WVU has had the good fortune to be supported by a regional law firm that has donated the time of up to 12 attorneys to grill the students during Moot Court as well as host a one-day preparation session.

ACHIEVING HIGHEST LEVELS OF LEARNING

Moot courts and mock trials are exciting methods for engaging students and helping them develop skills so they can be effective immediately after graduation. Such activities help ensure that students achieve the highest levels of learning.

Richard “Dick” A. Riley Jr., Ph.D., CFE, CPA, is a Louis F. Tanner Distinguished Professor of Public Accounting in the College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University in Morgantown. He is chair of the ACFE Higher Education Advisory Committee and the vice president of operations and research for the Institute for Fraud Prevention.

Tom Coogan, J.D., M.F.S., is an associate professor and Forensic Studies Program coordinator in the School of Graduate and Professional Studies at Stevenson University in Stevenson, Md.

George Curtis, J.D., is a professor of criminal justice and the executive director of the Economic Crime Institute at Utica College in Utica, N.Y.

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