I had some colleagues of mine do a moot court for my Obsidian Finance Group v. Cox argument tomorrow — many thanks to Profs. Stuart Banner, Sam Bray, Joanna Schwartz, and Steve Yeazell for that — and I also had the administration invite students to watch; about 40 students showed up, I think, and my sense is that they found it interesting, if only because they got to see a professor being grilled instead of doing the grilling. I did the same for my State v. Drahota argument a few years ago, and that seemed to have gone well, too.
I think this might be a good practice for law schools to engage in generally — whenever a faculty member is litigating a case and has a moot court for a forthcoming argument (even trial-level, but especially appellate), invite the students. It’s educational and even entertaining for the students, and I think it helps students see us as lawyers (even if only occasional lawyers) and not just as academics.