Mooting series Part 1- Introduction to Moot Court, Structure of Moot Courts.

Good legal education doesn’t teach us just legal theories but the best legal education make perfect students in practical law too. In the course of practical legal learning, MOOT COURTS is an important activity for law students in law school. Moot court is a must for law students. A law student should participate at least one time in their degree if a law student passes their degree without participating in moot court then s/he missed a very important part of his/her curriculum.

WHAT IS MOOT COURT?

This is famous among law students just as “moots”, it is an activity where student learn practical aspects of law apart from theoretical learning of law school. Moot court means a model of the actual court where student practice to present their cases before courts.
In moot courts, a fake case (sometimes actual cases from judgements) is given, students make their team and write memorial (such as case files) and then present given cases before judges

STRUCTURE OF MOOT COURT: TERMINOLOGY OF MOOT COURTS

TEAM– Generally a moot court consist three-person two speakers and one researcher, some moot court competitions allows 4 members, in which two are speakers and two researchers however that 4th member mostly is an optional member and moot court competitions do not prescribe any award for him/her.
Some Moot court competition allows only two speakers as a team however they also give the option of a researcher as an optional member but in such moot court competition, they do not prescribe any researcher test and researcher award for the researcher.

COACH- Some law schools have coaches to assist students in their moot case, but some law schools do not give such facility to their law students. Such law students prepare their case their selves. However this situation creates some kind of inequality among teams in moot court competitions, those who have coaches, of course, will do better and students who have no any coach will struggle to do better only with their hard work. Keeping this in mind some moot court competition organizer prohibits the entry of coaches in competition while some organizer allows it. But allowing the coaches in the competition too, encourage unfair competition because in such competition one team is well prepared and is also with their coach while other teams who have no coach just presenting their case without constant guidance. So if you do not see it appropriate you should report against it.

PREPOSITION- In Moot courts, organizers allot a case to teams and team have to prepare for that case. In class moots, this case is given by teachers.
In class moots, teacher either prepare preposition himself/herself or allot an actual case to prepare for, sometimes their preposition is an excerpt taken from any judgment so if you search a little on google you can easily access that judgement.
In MCCs (moot court competitions), Preposition is prepared by a reputed lawyer, professor and in some MCCs, the preposition is prepared by the professor of that law school sometimes by their law students. Some organizer gives information about their preposition maker in their introductory brochure by thanking them. In MCCs also some organizer derives their moot preposition from actual judgments with some modification so if you also search on google a little you can find that case (however this condition doesn’t apply to everywhere).
If MCC is reputed one then preposition of such MCC is very tough and long to 8 to 10 pages excluding annexures. But some small organizer keeps the length of preposition just to 2 or 3 pages and no any annexure.

MEMORIAL- the most important task of any MCC is memorial preparation. Memorial means a written submission which you present before the court apart from your oral presentation, just like case files of actual court.
The memorial consists of jurisdiction, facts of the cases, arguments, prayer etc. The main and important of a memorial is drafting of arguments which consumes a lot of time and hard work. Time for memorial preparation depends on how long your preposition is.
A good memorial is the guaranty of success in MCCs, but preparation gives mental pressure to students and that’s why every MCC has ‘BEST MEMORIAL AWARD”.

WHY MOOT COURT IS TOO IMPORTANT?

Moot court is not “feet of Angad” which you can’t move, it just needs time, efforts, understanding and knowledge and in return it gives you a lot, it polish you thoroughly.
Moot court teach the following lessons to law students

1. First of all, you learn teamwork and to work as a team. moot court is an activity which can’t do without perfect teamwork. A researcher can’t do very well if s/he don’t get equal help from his/her team members (speakers) as well as a speaker can’t speak if s/he abandoned by his/her teammates.
2. The more you participate in moot courts the more you learn drafting. Moot courts memorial is the soul of the moot courts once you complete this, you have to just revise that and practice for speaking. Memorial teaches you how to deal with a preposition (GIVEN CASE), how to create issues or how to deal with given issues, how to present arguments or contention in support of their cases, how to write “jurisdiction’, “arguments’, “prayer”, law students do not learn only to write contention but also to the art to write your contention (DRAFTING YOUR CASES) etc.
3. If you choose litigation career, you will get legal search work in your initiating days, either you start your career as an independent lawyer or choose to work under senior advocate, in both situations you need to learn legal search for cases. To be excel in legal search you should start to learn it from your law school by participating in moot courts. Memorial drafting teaches you to search case laws to support your cases which strengthen your knowledge about legal research and case laws.
4. Moot courts teach you the skill of case presentation, to present your arguments before judges (court). It makes perfect your oratory skill and you also learn the proceedings, protocols, rules of court.
5. It also gives you a sense of representation. When you participate in moot court competition, you are representing your law school and if you win, it gives you a sense of pride that you have achieved something for your precious, loving law school.
6. Last but not the least, the participation of moot court competitions gives you immense opportunity to connect with other law students, to travel in that city, to know the culture of that state and may more depend on how much observation skill you have.

In next part we will discuss “how to select moot preposition”