Empire Team Takes The 2026 National Title
LCS at the Empire Chicago, November, 2025
Coaches & students credit Empire for its role in their success
DES MOINES, IA. Lakeland Christian School has been crowned the 2026 National High School Mock Trial Champion, with a team of rookies completing a remarkable one-year rise to bring Florida its first national title in more than three decades.
For the students and coaches at Lakeland Christian School (LCS), however, the journey to the national championship did not begin in Iowa.
As senior Zack Branham said, their journey began at Empire Chicago.
From Rebuild to Belief
In the Fall of 2025, the LCS team entered Empire Chicago as a rebuilding program. Nearly every student on the roster was new to competitive Mock Trial. Senior Zack Branham, the team’s lone returning member, had never even competed as an attorney before.
“Last year, Lakeland Christian School’s mock trial team went through a rebuilding year,” said coach Chasity Branham. “Our team was made up of students that were passionate, driven, excited, and teachable. We knew we needed experience and we knew the best place to get ‘thrown into the deep end’ would be at Empire.”
That decision changed everything.
The team spent the summer preparing for Empire Chicago’s complex constitutional law case, working tirelessly to learn courtroom skills, build chemistry, and prepare for one of the strongest competitive fields in the country.
“There were laughs, there were tears, and everything in between,” Branham said. “There were moments of wanting to give up because it was hard, followed by recommitment to the goals we had made.”
More Than a Competition
When the team arrived in Chicago, students immediately found themselves immersed in the signature Empire atmosphere — opening ceremonies, international teams, courthouse rounds, and a student-centered environment designed to foster connection alongside competition.
“The atmosphere from the first moment that Empire creates during the competition is electric,” Branham reflected. “Even our most reserved introverted student was out of her shell truly enjoying interaction with other students from around the globe.”
For Branham, those interactions became one of the most meaningful takeaways from the entire experience.
“At that moment, as a coach, I knew that no matter what legal skills they had or had not mastered or no matter how we ‘performed’ during rounds, that this Empire experience was a huge WIN already,” Branham said. “My students were seeing their ‘world’ grow much larger than just the backyard of their individual hometowns. They were gaining life-long connections and new friends they would possibly continue to interact with in their next seasons of life.”
The experience reinforced lessons that extended far beyond the courtroom.
“They were learning that what truly makes life rich is human interaction,” Branham said. “They were learning that if they choose to focus on the similarities in each other, rather than the divisive differences that the world all too often highlights, we create something really special – community.”
In the Empire world, that community brought together students and coaches from around the world who shared a passion for the pursuit of justice through a fictitious yet realistic case filled with legal complexity and intellectual challenge.
For LCS junior Luke Cardosi, Empire represented something larger than competition.
“Empire was focused on having fun and testing your abilities,” Cardosi said. “Too often, the purpose of mock trial is lost in competition. Mock Trial isn’t to produce homogeneous mini-attorneys — it’s for students to experience the emotional journey that is a trial while also having fun.”
Learning to Fight Together
The competition itself proved transformational.
In one early round, every major piece of evidence Lakeland planned to use in closing argument was ruled inadmissible.
“As the coach, I sat in the back of that huge ballroom wondering, are they about to all hide under the table in fetal positions, or are they going to stay in that battle and figure it out together?” Branham recalled. “Stay in it they did.”
The team adapted on the fly and survived the round, a moment Branham says taught them resilience, composure, and trust in one another.
“They learned they could do hard things together,” she said. “Maybe not perfectly — but together.”
Meeting the Standard
Then came the matchup that many on the team now describe as the turning point of their entire season: a pairing against reigning national champion Montgomery Bell Academy.
“I will never forget when we got our round two pairings in Chicago,” Zack Branham said. “We looked up the team and their page read ‘2025 National Champions.’ We saw that round what it took to be national champions and exactly what our team needed to do to get there.”
Lakeland lost the round, but the experience fundamentally changed the team’s outlook and preparation.
“We lost this round, and this was the last round we ever lost as a Mock Trial team,” said senior Brody Denton. “Empire showed us how good we were under extreme yet amazing circumstances. But what it also showed us was how good we needed to be to be the best.”
Senior Griffin Byrd described the competition as “a completely different caliber” than anything the team had experienced before.
“With over 30 exhibits, eight witnesses, a pretrial oral argument, and a case packet more in-depth than anything we had ever seen, we knew we had a daunting task ahead of us,” Byrd said. “Without that opportunity at Empire, I would not have fully understood the level of preparation and excellence required to succeed on the national stage.”
For many students, Empire also became the place where they truly fell in love with mock trial.
“This argument is what made me fall in love with trial team,” Denton said about Empire’s signature pretrial competition. “The pretrial oral argument is unlike any other event available for high school mock trial students.”
Bringing the Lessons Home
Lakeland ultimately finished seventh overall at Empire Chicago — but the lessons extended far beyond placement.
The team returned to Florida sharper, more experienced, and more united. Shortly afterward, Lakeland Christian won the Florida State Championship, earning the right to represent the state at the National High School Mock Trial Championship in Des Moines.
Then came another grueling preparation cycle.
“Practice was every day,” Zack Branham said. “So many people helped us along the way prepare — alumni, local judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys, civil litigators, and coaches from other Florida teams.”
Full Circle
Yet for the team, the relationships built along the journey remain just as meaningful as the title itself.
“I loved both my experiences at Nationals and Empire,” said senior Maddie Powers. “But the thing that stuck out the most was the people and the community. Everyone around you seems to immediately be your best friend.”
That sense of community remained present even in Des Moines.
“It delighted my heart when I learned that immediately after being named National Champions, our team members were being congratulated on social media by new friends met at Empire,” Branham said. “It was a full circle moment.”
As Empire prepares for another season, Lakeland Christian School’s story stands as a testament to what can happen when talented students are challenged on the biggest stages, surrounded by meaningful community, and pushed to grow through adversity.
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