Doing Law Review & Moot Court Forum

[flcath]

I don't know why I'm considering this, but I am.

(1) Would doing moot court help my resume at all? I've always kinda written off its value, but there's gotta be something behind the fact that every OCI listing "prefers law review and moot court," right?

(2) Would it make this year a living hell for me (I am also tutoring some 1Ls in Ks, and working as an RA)? I think I would enjoy MC, but at the same time I'm not avid about it like some kids are.

[20121109]

Search. Function.

[flcath]

Search. Function.

Yeah I know, I know.

The first page of results shows a bunch of LR vs. MC things (and I clicked through them), which isn't my question. I know LR is better; I'm just asking if it can/should be supplemented with moot court.

I really don't know dick about moot court and what the demands are.

[Blindmelon]

Moot Court is rough for short bursts - while writing the brief, and during oral arguments. Those not on LR are usually out for blood to distinguish themselves and have much, much more time and so your chance of placing is low. I tend to think firms don't care about moot court unless you won something and its pretty irrelevant to future work unless you want to do appellate.

It is doable. I know people that did LR + Moot court who won a writing award and ended up on the board, but some people who tried to do both ended up dropping moot court or just blowing off oral argument. Don't underestimate the time-suck hell of LR.

[flcath]

Moot Court is rough for short bursts - while writing the brief, and during oral arguments. Those not on LR are usually out for blood to distinguish themselves and have much, much more time and so your chance of placing is low. I tend to think firms don't care about moot court unless you won something and its pretty irrelevant to future work unless you want to do appellate.

It is doable. I know people that did LR + Moot court who won a writing award and ended up on the board, but some people who tried to do both ended up dropping moot court or just blowing off oral argument. Don't underestimate the time-suck hell of LR.

Thanks. Could you expound a little bit on the time commitment? You compete for one of the teams your 2L year (over the whole year, or just fall?) and then do the inter-school competitions your 3L year? There's only one "project" (case to be researched and written upon) per semester?

I know these seem like clueless questions, but even after looking through our school's website and course catalog I don't understand how the goddamn thing works.

[ak362]

I'm a (rising?) 3L on both -- senior board of LR, MC board, and also compete for an interschool MC team. We do things a little differently in that you compete to get on the interschool MC group during your 1L spring. You compete in interschool competitions during your second year (brief-writing usually takes about 30-50 hours of work, depending on how dense your topic is, stretched out anywhere between a few weeks and a month and a half). Everything is competition-specific, so you could have a huge gap between your brief-writing period and your oral argument, and you could have less than a month. It really depends. You also have the option of returning for a second year, which I did.

I'm not going to lie, LR and MC together is a huge time commitment. But it is well worth it. I actually enjoy being on LR (it's helped my editing skills tremendously, and Bluebooking is second nature now), and I enjoy MC as well, particularly because I can voice a preference as to which competition I go to. This is going to sound a little trite, but it's all about time management and how well you can juggle everything.

[Blindmelon]

Moot Court is rough for short bursts - while writing the brief, and during oral arguments. Those not on LR are usually out for blood to distinguish themselves and have much, much more time and so your chance of placing is low. I tend to think firms don't care about moot court unless you won something and its pretty irrelevant to future work unless you want to do appellate.

It is doable. I know people that did LR + Moot court who won a writing award and ended up on the board, but some people who tried to do both ended up dropping moot court or just blowing off oral argument. Don't underestimate the time-suck hell of LR.

Thanks. Could you expound a little bit on the time commitment? You compete for one of the teams your 2L year (over the whole year, or just fall?) and then do the inter-school competitions your 3L year? There's only one "project" (case to be researched and written upon) per semester?

I know these seem like clueless questions, but even after looking through our school's website and course catalog I don't understand how the goddamn thing works.

Depends on your school. We do 1 big brief and oral argument 2L year, but the problem they give you takes a long time to digest. 2L is also just a rough year all 'round - OCI exhausts you, LR works you do death, and you want to maintain/increase your GPA if you want to clerk. Contact someone on LR and ask that to them - all journals are different with workload too, I believe ours is more rough than some others.

[Miller32]

Also interested, in a similar position. I think it's going to be rough but at this point if it will help my resume I'm willing to do it.