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Advanced Course on Mooting Skills (Module 1B) The LAW Learners
ADVANCED CERTIFICATE COURSE ON
MOOTING SKILLS
MODULE 1[B]
1. HOW TO GO ABOUT RESEARCHING FOR THE
MEMORIAL?
Moot Court is one of the practical exercises included in the curriculum of law students studying in various universities around the world to get them experience the art and joy of advocacy. The set-up of a moot court is similar to a court room, where there will be counsels for the petitioners and respondents, and a panel of Judges, who hear the counsels and arrive at a decision. Unlike a court, in a moot court the decision will be as to which team wins. A moot court team consists of 3 persons- two speakers and one researcher.
Advanced Course on Mooting Skills (Module 1B) The LAW Learners The speakers would divide the contentions between themselves as per their convenience and present before the judges, while the researcher would aid the team in arriving at logical contentions valid as per law to argue in support of their claims. The team will have to submit their memorials in which they will have their contentions, references compiled for both the petitioner and respondent side. There is lots of National and International Competitions conducted in India and around the world, where students battle it out with legal reasoning to win prizes and trophies.
2. POINT TO KEEP IN MIND WHILE RESEARCHING
FOR MOOT MEMORIAL
Even if one has the best vocabulary skills and eloquence, until the team has a good memorial, one will not be able to survive to the questions raised by the Judges. Following are a few key points to keep in mind while researching for your moot memorial: i) Having a researcher in your team, doesn’t mean that only he/she is supposed to work for the memorials. Until issues are divided and done individually by the three persons, a memorial would not reach the required standard. ii) Start from the base, and read your moot problem thoroughly before framing legal contentions. iii) After getting a brief idea about the problem consult with your teachers, seniors and friends and explain to them the line f arguments the team feels is suitable for the problem. This will help in understanding whether the team has conceived the problem in the right sense. iv) Start making a plan as to when the team would finish doing the memorials. Have a first draft, second and third draft. While doing each draft, the legal side would eventually become stronger. v) After completing the first draft, have a session with your mentors to see whether the team has cracked the basic laws in the problem thoroughly. vi) Always read the basic provisions first and then refer commentaries. vii) Apply the laws you have read to the facts in the problem. Just noting down case laws would not help you in mooting.
Advanced Course on Mooting Skills (Module 1B) The LAW Learners Following are some of the opinions given by my colleagues regarding the research aspect of Mooting, who have participated along with me for various moots competitions and bagged prizes: i) The team who had won the Best Memorial at the All India Moot Court Competition organised by Government Law College Ernakulum asserts that one of the main reason as to why they bagged the prize was the end number of times they had gone through their own memorial, and analysed whether each argument stood tall with respect to law and facts. According to them, if the reasons for their contentions do not seem satisfactory for them, it will not be a surprising element that the Judges would be unimpressed by their work. They have emphasised as to how reading commentaries helped them in arriving at similar case laws as to their problem. ii) The team who had bagged and won the All India Moot Court Competitions by Aligarh Law College emphasised that their key to success rested on the fact that they had read the judgements relating to their problem thoroughly. Their problem had the same facts of a real case where the accused was given punishment of death penalty by the lower court while the higher courts reduced that punishment into life imprisonment. They had read the lower courts and the higher courts judgement thoroughly, and framed their contentions based on that. iii) As for the team who was the winner at the National Moot Court Competitions organised by the Ambedkar Law College, their key to research was based on strategic planning rather than panicking at the last time. They firmly believe that only an organised team would be able to crack the issues and problems without flaws. iv) Our strategy with respect to our problem must be to first read a relevant book thoroughly as based on the law aspect of the moot problem, have an idea about the legal framework and then apply these legal provisions to the facts. We should also tried to argue on our own contentions to see whether they made sense to us or not.
Advanced Course on Mooting Skills (Module 1B) The LAW Learners v) To earn those brownie extra points, we should pay more attention to getting new case laws, which we give as submission while arguing. Apart from these mentioned points and issues, one must be firm with regards to the following aspects- Whether you win or not is not the mandatory question when it comes to a moot court competition. The process of the moot court is the real prize you take back and cherish. The entire journey of moot court competitions would help you in appreciating, analysing law better and will help you in understanding the value of teamwork. It would provide and prepare you for the hectic and enjoyable schedules of advocacy for which each law student has signed up in.
