All this family togetherness might grate on other brothers, but Kevin says coaching Cory has been "pretty easy."

"There's a 10-year age difference, so we don't have sibling rivalry," says the coach. "He's a fast learner and a real team player. He ended up having to do a lot of administrative tasks he didn't volunteer for."

Cory was on the mock trial team as a freshman, but Leland was without a coach last year and so didn't participate in the competition.

"I figured I'd get it started again," says Kevin, who was on the team himself as a high-school student.

In his day, Leland's mock trial team attracted students who were also on the school's powerhouse speech and debate team. Due to conflicting competitions, Kevin says, that wasn't the case this year.

"Most students were from a drama background or just average high-schoolers," he said. "It was really interesting in that respect because people had more time for it."

When Kevin was competing, Leland's mock trial team was an eclectic bunch.

"I really enjoyed being part of the team," he recalls. "We had people who normally wouldn't hang around with each other. It was really cool to have a mix of students. It also solidified my desire to go to law school and become an attorney."

The California Mock Trial program was introduced in 1980 by the Los Angeles­based Constitutional Rights Foundation. More than 8,000 high school students in 36 counties participate in the program, acting as prosecutors, defense attorneys and witnesses in the case.

This year's mock trial case involved a high-school student charged with vehicular manslaughter after another student was killed in an alleged drag race. In last month's competition at the Santa Clara County Superior Court building, Cory presented the opening arguments for both the defense and the prosecution. Coach Kevin says the scoring for these arguments isn't weighted as heavily as when he was competing.

"That means the pretrial, witness examinations and cross-examinations are more important," he says. "I didn't understand that until the competition itself, but it wouldn't have changed our strategy."

Leland was knocked out of the preliminary rounds this year, but the coach still praises his team's performance.

"Three of the four teams we went up against made it to the quarter-finals, including Palo Alto," Kevin notes. Palo Alto High School went on to win the county finals.

Kevin says his experience as a first-year coach taught him a lot about strategy.

"There were some things I didn't anticipate being a problem that were, and other things I didn't think would go as well as they did," he adds. "For me, the best part was working with high-school students and doing something people appreciate. If I can encourage them to go to law school or do something they might not have done, I feel really great."

The coach's strategy for next year's team includes more scrimmages with other local schools prior to the county competition.

"We definitely have a good foundation," Kevin says.