Writing sample ethics Q Forum

[Anonymous User]

I want to use a writing sample from a moot court competition. I really want to perfect the brief, but the competition was over a long time ago so I can't discuss it with my teammates or with random people who also worked on it recently.
The brief is written and I have feedback that I got during the competition, and I'm sitting down to polish it for judges. However, there are one or two issues that I'm uncertain about. Not to get too far into the weeds, but one issue is classifying the legal issue. If it is analyzed as an x issue, the test is "abc". If it is analyzed as a y issue, the test is "def". To complicate things further, I know that the issue was "meant" to be analyzed as X but I feel pretty sure that I can make a good case for Y and it's better for the "client". So here's my dilemma:

1. Is it okay to ask someone else who wrote a brief on this if I can see his brief?
2. Is it okay to discuss it with a professor?

I assume that neither would be okay during the competition, but OTOH, during the competition there would be other ways to determine the answer to the question, like working through it with teammates. Is it okay for a writing sample submission?

[Anonymous User]

With out moot court competition, we could discuss it with whomever we wanted after the competition was over. Was it explicitly different for yours? That would surprise me.

If there is no such explicit rule, I would feel free to discuss it with other students or professors, but probably wouldn't ask to see another student's brief.

I am on the honor council for my school so people are always asking me what they can and can't do. The thing is, we don't have a set of rules students have to follow during the moot court competition. Each class/program sets its own rules.

[Anonymous User]

With out moot court competition, we could discuss it with whomever we wanted after the competition was over. Was it explicitly different for yours? That would surprise me.

If there is no such explicit rule, I would feel free to discuss it with other students or professors, but probably wouldn't ask to see another student's brief.

I am on the honor council for my school so people are always asking me what they can and can't do. The thing is, we don't have a set of rules students have to follow during the moot court competition. Each class/program sets its own rules.

Right, it's not so much a moot court question as a writing sample question. If I want to present this as my own work, how much can it be influenced by other people's work or input? For that reason, I think that a professor might be better than reading someone else's brief because his view is somewhat "authoritative" but the input is by definition limited to the few issues that we discuss, whereas once I look at someone else's brief, there is no way to limit how much of it I utilize. Of course, this is an odd question since it's not like there will be anyone policing it and demanding answers. It's almost a procedural issue between me and myself.

[sidhesadie]

JMO, but I think discussing with a prof is fine, and even maybe discussing with a classmate, but I don't know about asking someone who wrote it the other way if you can see their brief.

I don't really see any difference between talking to a prof, and the usual editing that occurs while you're writing it, either with a prof or supervising attorney. But saying, can I see what you wrote, and then changing your own work based on what they said? ehhhh... (ok, you kind of do that in REAL life, but here, I don't know.) I would err on the side of caution and discuss with a prof.I would feel "cheater-ish" about looking at someone else's brief.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Not sure if this will be much help, but: when an intern in the chambers where I worked last year wanted to use something from the internship as a writing sample, but wanted to have an unedited sample, the judge discussed it with him in detail, had him write a detailed outline, and went through the outline a few times. Then the intern wrote the final version, which the judge didn't change. The judge was fine with this as an unedited sample. So I would think you could discuss the brief with anyone, and the issues, as long as that person doesn't sit down and edit your work.

I don't know about looking at someone else's brief on the other side - that just seems off, like it would be hard to know how much that influences you (like you said). But I don't see why you couldn't talk to the person who wrote the brief.