Tips for Moot Court oral arugments Forum

[bsktbll28082]

Is it common for the moot court board to send out sample briefs with the main arguments/cases you should focus on? I don't understand why we wrote our own briefs then. The judges don't even see them.

Do you mean that the board sent out bench memos to the judges for the competition? If so, this is incredibly common. It's hard enough to get people to judge moot court competitions as it is; if you had to make the judges read the student briefs for all the sessions they judge, no one would do it. It's also fairly realistic to actual appellate panels, where judges may be relying on bench memos prepared by their clerks, rather than on the briefs and record. (If they're not authoring the opinion.)

Yes, it sounds like the judges will be getting sample briefs. But so did we- they posted 6 example briefs and told us to basically argue what the briefs said.

I thought it was weird they provided the arguments like that, but maybe that's how moot court is :/

[sd5289]

Is it common for the moot court board to send out sample briefs with the main arguments/cases you should focus on? I don't understand why we wrote our own briefs then. The judges don't even see them.

Do you mean that the board sent out bench memos to the judges for the competition? If so, this is incredibly common. It's hard enough to get people to judge moot court competitions as it is; if you had to make the judges read the student briefs for all the sessions they judge, no one would do it. It's also fairly realistic to actual appellate panels, where judges may be relying on bench memos prepared by their clerks, rather than on the briefs and record. (If they're not authoring the opinion.)

Yes, it sounds like the judges will be getting sample briefs. But so did we- they posted 6 example briefs and told us to basically argue what the briefs said.

I thought it was weird they provided the arguments like that, but maybe that's how moot court is :/

TBH, that's kind of a weird setup. The only reason you would give competitors the bench memos is if it's a quickly drawn together competition where they didn't have time to research the issues and write a brief (I competed in one of those).

Otherwise...I dunno. The actual competition I went to in November, we very much went with a no holds barred, adopt the 7th Circuit holding while arguing on brief, which was probably not part of any bench memo, but intrigued judges enough that we continued to advance all the way through to the finals. I guess I don't understand why they'd limit all arguments to a section of 6 pre-approved arguments...

[A. Nony Mouse]

Is it common for the moot court board to send out sample briefs with the main arguments/cases you should focus on? I don't understand why we wrote our own briefs then. The judges don't even see them.

Do you mean that the board sent out bench memos to the judges for the competition? If so, this is incredibly common. It's hard enough to get people to judge moot court competitions as it is; if you had to make the judges read the student briefs for all the sessions they judge, no one would do it. It's also fairly realistic to actual appellate panels, where judges may be relying on bench memos prepared by their clerks, rather than on the briefs and record. (If they're not authoring the opinion.)

Yes, it sounds like the judges will be getting sample briefs. But so did we- they posted 6 example briefs and told us to basically argue what the briefs said.

I thought it was weird they provided the arguments like that, but maybe that's how moot court is :/

Oh, okay, that does sound weird.

[BelugaWhale]

Is it common for the moot court board to send out sample briefs with the main arguments/cases you should focus on? I don't understand why we wrote our own briefs then. The judges don't even see them.

Do you mean that the board sent out bench memos to the judges for the competition? If so, this is incredibly common. It's hard enough to get people to judge moot court competitions as it is; if you had to make the judges read the student briefs for all the sessions they judge, no one would do it. It's also fairly realistic to actual appellate panels, where judges may be relying on bench memos prepared by their clerks, rather than on the briefs and record. (If they're not authoring the opinion.)

Yes, it sounds like the judges will be getting sample briefs. But so did we- they posted 6 example briefs and told us to basically argue what the briefs said.

I thought it was weird they provided the arguments like that, but maybe that's how moot court is :/

Oh, okay, that does sound weird.

How can you write a brief when the sample briefs already take up all the good arguments and copying them is plagiarism?! Do they want crappy briefs?

Edit: I think I got it. Some schools do moot court differently in that it's ONLY an oral competition so there is no writing component. If this is how your moot court does it, then the setup makes sense.

[bsktbll28082]

We actually did write a brief. Had about two weeks to do it so I think there was enough time to research. And I don't think we're limited to the arguments in the sample briefs (just highly suggested that those are the strongest). They provided the sample briefs to the competitors- sounded weird and it sounds like you all agree.

Brief will be worth 30% of our score (in the first few rounds), and oral argument 70%. Top 8 make board.