Insights re: competitive moots

[TheSocratic]

Hi all,

I'm in the process of deciding which competitive moot to apply for and would appreciate some insights regarding the options. I'm particularly curious about Laskin: what is the workload like? Do unilingual schools/individuals stand much of a chance of doing well? Looking at the awards from the past several years, it seems like they are heavily dominated by eastern schools where bilingualism is more prevalent.

If anyone has thoughts to share re: other moots, that would also be very appreciated. 

[Panda]

1 hour ago, TheSocratic said:

Hi all,

I'm in the process of deciding which competitive moot to apply for and would appreciate some insights regarding the options. I'm particularly curious about Laskin: what is the workload like? Do unilingual schools/individuals stand much of a chance of doing well? Looking at the awards from the past several years, it seems like they are heavily dominated by eastern schools where bilingualism is more prevalent.

If anyone has thoughts to share re: other moots, that would also be very appreciated. 

I can't speak to the Laskin Moot in particular, but the workload for moot is generally the largest for any credits in law school in my opinion. When I competed in two of the relatively obscure moots, the workload was easily in excess of 10-20 hours per week on average. Closer to the competition, my team was practicing for around 4 hours every other day on top of our individual practice. In the two weeks leading up to the two factum submissions, we probably spent 30-60 hours on each factum. I'll note as a caveat that you can probably get away with significantly less work, but if you are trying to compete for awards, I'd be prepared to spend a minimum of around 20 hours per week on the moot work.

Despite the heavy workload, I also think this was some of the most rewarding work I did in law school and certainly solidified my interest in a niche area of law that I hope to soon be practicing.  

[QMT20]

On 3/15/2022 at 1:27 PM, TheSocratic said:

Hi all,

I'm in the process of deciding which competitive moot to apply for and would appreciate some insights regarding the options. I'm particularly curious about Laskin: what is the workload like? Do unilingual schools/individuals stand much of a chance of doing well? Looking at the awards from the past several years, it seems like they are heavily dominated by eastern schools where bilingualism is more prevalent.

If anyone has thoughts to share re: other moots, that would also be very appreciated. 

I did the Laskin and another national moot when I was in law school. I would say the workload for either moot was about equal to all my other classes combined in one semester. The result was for both of those moots I did next to no school work from early January-end of February and then spent all of March catching up on my courses. Most of the people I knew had a similar experience. 

Bilingualism is definitely an advantage at the Laskin. Every school is required to have at least one mooter moot in either of the official languages. That means your team has to either be 2 English mooters and 2 French mooters or 3 English/French mooters and 1 mooter in the other language. McGill perennially dominates the Laskin because they have a deep pool of strong students in both official languages. By contrast, my school usually only gets one or two students who try out for the French mooter position in the Laskin each year and how strong of a team we field can vary drastically depending on who's available to do the French portion. Additionally, at least one pair from your school will have to do a bilingual round (meaning a round where one mooter from each team gives submissions in English and one mooter gives submissions in French). Again, you can be disadvantaged by not being fluent in the same language as the mooter from the other team who gives submissions on your issue. 

All of that being said, it's not impossible to do well at the Laskin without being bilingual. Strong legal research skills and a sincere interest in constitutional and administrative law will carry you further than just being able to speak both official languages. There's also an individual portion of the competition where you're ranked just for your own submissions without taking into consideration the strength of your team as a whole (which may be impacted by the difficulty of finding someone to moot in the other official language). 

If you're interested in public law but you don't want to do a bilingual moot, consider the Wilson. There's always a s. 15 Charter issue in the Wilson problem but in recent years they've also thrown other Charter issues and administrative law issues into the problem. 

 

[Ripcord]

I didn't do the Laskin (so I'll point you to @QMT20 for insight on that specific moot) but they're all right regarding the work you have to do for a national competitive level moot. While it isn't sustained work throughout an entire school-year, the period around when the factum is due to when your orals are will be busy. As we were the Respondents for our national moot, we didn't have to worry too much about writing our factum to begin with but had a smaller time to do it once we received our Appellant's factum (the due date was super close to when we received the Appellant factum). Those days were hectic; my partner and I were in front of a computer screen for, on average, six hours a day, working away on a Google Doc together. We would often get our drafts back from our moot coach in odd hours of the night or early morning so we would hop back on and work again. I can say that those ten odd days of factum writing were the most busy I've ever been in law school (albeit, I was also going through the OCI recruiting process and some misplaced midterms).  

Oral practices are also intensive (depends on your moot coach as well). I remember we had two 2-hour practices each day for about 10 days. We also had additional individual practices to go over any comments we had received. As the practices went on, they were just more fine-tuning, so they wasn't as laborious as the first two or three practices were. 

On 3/15/2022 at 3:32 PM, Panda said:

Despite the heavy workload, I also think this was some of the most rewarding work I did in law school and certainly solidified my interest in a niche area of law that I hope to soon be practicing.  

This right here, is exactly why I wanted to do a national moot. I didn't win any awards (and honestly, don't be annoyed if you don't). The award truly is the experience you get and the bonds you make with our other teammates. Since I did my moot during the pandemic, I had a chance to form some close bonds with my moot partner and my mooting coach (which is always welcome when I cannot step foot into my law school). My school (and I think many others do as well) give us credits for the time we do the moot, so I was able to get the equivalent of a course out of the way by early March, so I only had to do three exams over the April exam period (an award in itself!). 

Feel free to PM and we can go over the specifics of the moot I did if you would like. I think you're going to enjoy the Laskin if you end up applying and being selected for it! 

[Catpurrccino]

i didn't do the laskin moot but have experience with two other moots. please feel free to PM me if you think i may be able to help. i'm happy to chat. i just dont want to mention which moots, because then i will likely reveal my identity.

timeline/workload: most moots are held in mar/apr, with factum due in jan/feb. some schools start the prep work in late oct/early nov. depending on your school/coaches, the preparation timeline varies.

the above posts said it well about the workload. i was working and had a full courseload while i was involved in the moots (not both moots at the same time!), the burnout was real (still recovering!). at multiple times i had to push other school work aside, so there were work to pick up afterwards.

i would caution about doing a moot if you anticipate recruitment or major commitment in the same time frame.

that said, a moot is a great way to learn: in hingsight, i personally found a moot really teaches me the art of advocacy. for example, i've heard about "massaging facts" many times and never understood what it means. but now i feel like im starting to get a sense of it. still, there is a lot to learn. 

if you are considering other moots, maybe pick them based on the subject matter: a moot is also a great way to learn about the subject matter. there is the Oxford IP moot for IP enthusiast, WTO/ELSA for international trade, Walker for health law issues etc. the school should have a list of moots to which it plans to send teams.

added bonus: depending on the team assembled, you can get teammates who are so talented and who will become good friends! plus, if you place well, it is a good way to showcase your ability to your future/potential employer (at least i would hope so!)

 

 

[It_Depends]

Sopinka Moot is trial level and no factum required!