Mooting

‘Wads mooting?’ u may ask. It’s a legal debate between an appellant and a respondent in front of an impartial judge. A bundle of authorities must be submitted to the opposite party and the judge a week b4 the mooting. This is so that they may read through the cases dat ure gonna be using later. So wads a bundle of authorities anyway? Its basically a file containing cases that u will be using for ur moot. U also have to include definitions that ure gonna be using. All these definitions have to be from an authority, meaning a dictionary or a textbook or etc. a case in itself is an authority because the judgement of the case makes it a precedent for other cases.

Like I mentioned b4, there r 2 sides to the moot. An appellant n a respondent. Usually for the respondents, there is a senior respondent n a junior respondent n vice versa for the appellants. Does it all sound a lil complicated? Well, it gets worse.

Here’s how my partner n I prepared for our moot. We were given the mooting question about a month b4 the moot. I ignored it till about 1½ weeks b4 the moot coz we had client interview the week b4 we were supposed to hand in the bundle of authorities. After the client interview I relaxed a bit then was reminded by my extremely stressed classmate about the bundle of authorities. So I copied a few of the titles of the cases dat my fren already had n my partner n I printed them out from lexis nexis (lexis nexis is a site for lawyers n law students but it has to be paid for. My verdict of it is dat… It sucks! Sometimes u type the title of a case n its search result is a list of cases, none of which is the title u typed. So siennnnnn!!!)

I printed out 4 cases so I had to read thru them to see if I could cite any part of the judgements for my moot. Dis is an extremely tedious job. Judges love to use the most canggih words possible. They also love to make it as difficult as possible for ppl to understand. *sigh* but luckily I love to read so it wasnt so hard for me to understand wad the judges were trying to say. =p Some of my classmates weren’t so lucky n had to read thru judgements several times. Then after reading the cases, we had to sort out the usable ones from the ones dat din support our case. After dat, we had to find more cases to read n repeat the whole process. Sometimes a case had up to six judges n each judge had their judgement dat we had to go thru…. Sometimes amounting to 19 pages.

Finally we choose our cases then put it all together in the file separating each case wif a divider. We also had to highlight the parts of the judgements dat we were gonna use so dat it wud be easier for the judge. (ure dead if the judge cant find the part ure citing n gets pissed.) we had 10 cases which was the max cases we cud cite. Then for the appellants, (we were respondents) we juz gave them the stack of cases wifout filing or highlighting it nicely like we did for the judge. =p but they did the same for us anyway.

Then we handed it in at 3pm on fri. the deadline was at 5pm so we were quite happy we finished earlier. But lots of other groups finished way earlier. :(

I lazed around on sat n did my speech on sun, i took only 3hrs. *grin* then I relaxed for the rest of the day. My frens were all stressing out but I din see the point in being stressed coz all we had to do was to read out ur speech to the judge.

On mon my speech was scheduled for 4pm. we went in at 3 to see the 1^st group moot. (it was open court meaning any1 cud enter the courtroom to watch. We were the second group. The rest stretched out till wed) then it was our turn… their senior appellant (who happens to be my last yr class rep) presented their speech then I presented mine. I tried to refer as lil as possible to the paper but ended up referring a lot anyway. Haha~ I only took less then 10 mins of the 12 (or is it 15) mins dat I was allocated. My speech was pretty short compared to the rest. But to my defense, its short, sweet n to the point… like me! (yea rite! Im tall ok! Dun believe a thing my dad says!)

Then their junior appellant gave his speech. He was an Indian (from India?? I noe he’s not from msia) n he spoke super fast (ure supposed to speak relatively slowly during moots so dat the judge has time to digest every point u make) I had no idea wad was he toking about n the judge was frowning (which is so not a good sign esp when she’s the one giving the marks…) sometimes she even had to ask him to repeat himself several times.

Then it was my junior respondent’s (caroline from my class last yr) turn n she gave her speech n towards the end she stumbled on a word or 2 n I cud tell she was getting thirsty (I mean imagine toking non-stop for 10 mins!) coz I was also thirsty. Haha~

(btw... here's the title of one of the cases we went thru. "Brinkibon Ltd v Stahag Stahl and Stahlwarenhandelsgesellschaft " no kidding. thank god we din use it. haha~)

Then after the appellants gave their rebuttal speech, it was all over!!! Whohoo!! I pity the groups after us coz some of them have their turn on wed which is 2 extra days of stress. =p

Btw… mooting speeches have to be full of ‘my lady’ n ‘my ladyship’ n ‘if it pleases the court’ n ‘much obliged my lady’…. So super polite! Sumhow it kinda feels like groveling to me. *shrugs*

My opinion on mooting… a blardy waste of time n effort!!! Imagine goin thru so many cases n in the end for the speech only citing less then half of the cases u went thru which is about half of the cases in ur bundle of authorities. All dat effort for 10mins or so of talk!!!

The results r out! i dunno my marks, but my partner n i managed to get best court etiquette. yay!!! the other awards were best mooter n best bundle of authorities. several ppl won each award. n altho im juz one of the 8 dat won dat award, i feel so happy!!! *grin*

Anyway, I noe dis is a relli long n boring post, so here r a few pics to make dis post more interesting. =p

caroline, ming yuen, me


caroline on the left n me on the right


the dynamic duo -we look so pro!!! =p


jason's trying to take artistic pics again... lol~


the court robe is HUGE (actually we already kept our stuff but we purposely spread it all on the table to take pics. =p)