The Titanic disaster might be a defense lawyer's worst nightmare. The doomed cruiseliner didn't have nearly enough lifeboats, the crew disregarded all iceberg warnings, and most men were never even given the chance to get off the boat before it plunged into the icy North Atlantic on April 15, 1912.

So the employees of Anderson, Kill, and Olick did what any good lawyers might do. They went to trial.

Or they pretended to.

Their Web site, www.andersonkill.com/titanic/, lets users take part in a mock trial between the Titanic's owner, the White Star Line, and one of the ship's passengers.

"We wanted to have something on our site that would be entertaining as well as educational," says Linda Gersteo, a partner at the firm.

The educational Web site grew out of the "Take Your Daughters to Work Day" tradition at AKO. Every year, the firm holds a mock trial, such as Goldilocks v. The Three Bears, for the daughters. In 1998, the lawyers staged the Titanic trial, and the girls liked it so much AKO decided to put it on the Web.

A mock trial on this Web site gives insight to the Titanic disaster.

Part of the mock trial's appeal was that it was mostly based on historical fact. The characters, Carla Jensen, 19, and her recent fiance, Hans, a 20-year-old carpenter were real passengers on the doomed ship.

Although the actual lawsuits against White Star were settled out of court — with the largest American settlement being $5,000 and the largest British award being $50,000 — and Carla Jensen never filed a suit, everything else about the story is true.

Carla and Hans Jensen, whose last names were the same by coincidence, were both immigrants from Denmark and hoped to make a better life in America. Those dreams went down with the Titanic after it slammed into an iceberg near midnight on April 14, 1912.

Carla escaped on Life Boat 16, while Hans helped evacuate fellow passengers. When it came time for the last boat to leave, Boat D, Hans was given a seat but gave it up. The suit asks why.

The mock plaintiff says that Hans gave up his seat because the ship had a discriminatory "women and children first" policy, and when additional women came on deck, he had to get out.

The defense counters that Hans was not obligated to get out of the lifeboat, and, in fact, there was enough room for both him and the additional women. They say Hans knowingly put himself at risk and that his actions and those of his fellow passengers contributed more to his death than anything the White Star Line did.

Jurors must decide whether White Star was negligent or whether Hans' actions led to his own death.

In reality, Carla never got over the experience and when she died in 1980, she was buried in the nightgown she was wearing the night Titanic sank.

Although you won't see Leonardo DiCaprio or Kate Winslett here, interesting characters abound. The Web site lets participants play the roles of Hans, Carla, jurors, plaintiff or defense lawyers, witnesses, or the judge.

There's Captain Lightoller, who, in real life, helped evacuate passengers and then went down with the ship only to be blown back to the surface by an exploding boiler. In the mock trial, Lightoller is a key witness who claims he saw Hans get out of the lifeboat and can therefore testify to Hans' state of mind.

After roles are assigned, the mock trial takes place offline — mostly in classrooms — and players use depositions, charts and information about negligence case law to conduct the proceedings.

Most of the site's users are middle-school teachers and students, but all are welcome.

The site is relevant to everyone from kids to adults, Gersteo says, because many of the insurance and property issues brought up in the Titanic case are still being debated today, particularly following Sept. 11.

"We had no clue how popular [the site] would become," Gersteo said. "When the movie 'Titanic' came out no one knew how big it would get, and our site's the same. People are just attracted to the story."

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