1L Moot Tips?

[osgoode2323]

Any advice when it comes to preparing a moot in 1L?

[Renerik]

Ahoy! Here are a few thoughts:

The factum
- The majority of the work is done here. You want to put in a significant amount of time researching, writing, and editing your factum. In the article Forget the Windup and Make the Pitch, Judge John Laskin (not Bora) wrote: "you can no longer treat your factum as casually as the bar did a quarter of a century ago. When I practised I worked pretty hard on my own factums. Now that I am on the other side I can say that if I knew then what I know now, I would have worked even harder." While mooting is different than practice, the above still applies. You want to make your position and arguments clear. Failing that, one of the judges will gladly take you down a mini trial on the meaning of the words used in your factum, taking away time for your other arguments.
- Spend some time going over the factum as a whole. The factum should read as a congruent whole instead of something two people slapped together. Additionally, you should be well acquainted with your partner's arguments, their weaknesses, and the related jurisprudence. Judges can, and often do, ask you questions about your partner's submissions to which "my partner will speak to that point" isn't a good answer.

Preparing for the moot
- You want to practice alongside your partner at least a few times before the moot itself. If upper-years are willing to sit-in and judge your performance even better. Tell the upper years that they can interrupt you mid-submission just like a judge would. Take upper-year advice with a grain of salt but they likely know more than you. If you can, record yourself and re-watch the recording to see how you did.
- Practice in as live of an environment as possible (standing up, in a classroom, etc).
- Time yourself during your practice.
- You shouldn't be reading off your factum during the moot. You should make a script and either memorize the key elements or bring in a copy to your practices/the moot. Your script should have some all the main points you want to discuss during your oral submission. Your script should also have contingencies in-case you spent too much time on a specific issue or if one of the judges took you down a rabbit hole.  Memorization isn't key here, but you should be familiar with the content of your script so that your eyes are on the judges for the vast majority of the moot.

The moot itself
- Place your phone on the podium and use your phone's stopwatch function to keep track of the time - there's likely going to be a timekeeper but they don't give you many queues for pacing.
- Bring a water bottle. Some mooters will take a sip between arguments or following a question to re-ground themselves.
- If the judges have name plates, try and refer to them by name if they interrupt you. If they don't have name plates, write them down somewhere if they introduce themselves prior to the moot.
- "I don't have an answer for you at this time" isn't a great answer, but it's often better than floundering on jurisprudence you don't understand.
- If you're down on time and have three arguments (or two arguments with multiple parts), don't feel pressured to speak to each argument if they're not equally as strong. If you burned half your time on argument 1, argument 2 is strong, and argument 3 is a hail-mary policy argument, spend the remainder of your time on argument 2 and either omit or summarize argument 3 in one sentence (though a judge might catch-on that you have 3 arguments and ask you to move along to the third argument).
- In the event you run out of time, ask the judges if you could spend 15 seconds to conclude and recite your mini-conclusion.

Other thoughts
- Sometimes you get paired up with a partner who's a rat bastard and all you can do is mitigate their attempts to tank your moot (though your partner probably also thinks you're a rat bastard trying to tank their moot). Most schools grade you on your individual performance.

There are probably more important points that I've omitted, but those should help in some capacity.

[LMP]

On 1/8/2024 at 5:11 PM, osgoode2323 said:

Any advice when it comes to preparing a moot in 1L?

Excellent advice already given above, I'll add one thing, don't stress. It's 1L and it's a moot. You're gonna make a mistake, you'll be corrected, you'll fumble a question. 

The point of this is to learn and familiarize yourself with moots. Remember that gaining experience is the goal and that should be your metric of success. 

[chaboywb]

On 1/14/2024 at 4:22 AM, LMP said:

Excellent advice already given above, I'll add one thing, don't stress. It's 1L and it's a moot. You're gonna make a mistake, you'll be corrected, you'll fumble a question. 

The point of this is to learn and familiarize yourself with moots. Remember that gaining experience is the goal and that should be your metric of success. 

Agreed. Nobody is expecting you to be a legal superstar in the 1L moot and it's okay to make a mistake or even say something blatantly incorrect. It's very much a public speaking competition and your ability to roll with the judges' punches is key. Confidence and the ability to smoothly transition to the next point when you don't have an answer will take you far. There are Youtube videos of moot finals that I'd suggest searching for and watching - try to match their cadence and general formula of outlining key points with a strong intro and closing. The winning style tends to be more conversational than formal.