A Look Inside Residency Weekend

By: Ashley Zacker

Residency is coming up. Deep breath.

There’s a mix of nerves and stress, but overriding those feelings is excitement. Excitement at seeing friends again, at meeting other cohorts and professors in person for the first time, at getting one step closer to completing our legal educations.

This past time, though, in February 2026, was a little different. The same excitement was there, but there was an increased feeling of gravity. This time, my partner and I would be responsible for prosecuting a woman for negligent homicide in a mock trial. Although we prepared for weeks, nothing fully prepares you for how you feel when you’re standing there, in front of successful attorneys volunteering their time to judge the trial, and your mind goes blank. Poof.

You can’t remember what the point was that you were so ready to drive home. Even though you were certain this wouldn’t happen, you freeze.

An attorney friend of mine told me during my preparation, “Calm down, Ashley, nobody’s going to jail today.” I heard those words in my head during that freeze. I took a deep breath and pushed forward.

At some point in our legal careers, we will be responsible for a task that has major consequences. It might not be life and death, it might not be a chance of imprisonment or a criminal going free, but it will be significant. Because let’s be honest, we’re not going to law school to do inconsequential work. Most of us in the JDO program are not your traditional students – we have full-time careers, families, children – if we wanted a career that was simple, we wouldn’t be here.

So yes, we will someday be performing tasks that have significant consequences, and this mock trial played an important role in that. It may have given us some gray hairs from stress, but it was vital to our success long-term. Next time, when we are in a real-life situation instead of a simulation, we won’t freeze nearly as long. We won’t panic. We will know how to prepare, because we’ve been there. We’ll all be glad that we had the opportunity to explore this process in a safe space with low stakes, in front of people who genuinely want to help us improve. We only had that experience thanks to CSU’s emphasis on bringing the JDO students from behind the screens to in-person, real-life situations.