Finished!

Haazaarrrrrrrrr

I finished my undergraduate life on Friday after two very stressful exams, that were slightly more challenging than what I expected. Law of Evidence went ok... I know that I did well in two questions, who knows about the other two. Medical Law and Ethics was really shittingly tough, a lot of people came out of the exam feeling like they did not have a clue what they were writing about and many people after leaving the exam hall were crying. Suffice to say I think I have done well/ok and hopefully this means I shall get into Cambridge, if not and I have done soo badly that I have got a 2:2 I shall be jumping infront of a bendy bus.

I've had a bad hangover the last few days as you can imagine, 8 hours in a pub with £1 a pint.. Thats a lot of pints....

Now I have my Semi Final moot to look forward to, its about UCTA, something again I have no idea about, though hopefully this means that I can apply to some mixed common law sets as I have mooted so much on contract this year, that I actually know bits of it quite well!

3 yrs have gone by really really quickly, and I was a bit sad for moment until I realised that my skeleton was in for tomorrow evening and I don't know anything about it!

Good luck for all of the readers who have finished their exams for this year!!

RAGE

I can only express my EXTREME disappointment with the organisers of the moot competition am I in.

They have given us yet ANOTHER contract law problem again concerning UCTA. Now this was somewhat covered in the 2nd round moot, and I am surprised it has returned again to rear its horrifically ugly head.

Surprisingly all my knowledge of contract law comes from mooting as being a juvenile in my first year I decided that I would not need to know about it when pursuing a career in Criminal Law.

Alas I now wish I had done more... the moot is next month after my exams so hopefully I will have enough time to celebrate finishing university (is that celebrate or cry uncontrobally about having to now be a responsible adult?)

The moot must go on!

Mooting Do's and Dont's

*Editing of my profound attack on the english language in this post will commence shortly*

Perhaps BoB can collaborate on a project with me entitled Mooting: A novice's guide however for the time being escaping from the bore that is jurisprudence revision (or is that learning) I shall suggest some Mooting Don'ts, many of which I have learned from past experience and dare I suggest what I have learnt from the mistakes of other mooters.

Mooting Dont's to being with

1. Do not under prepare your bundle.
Your bundle should include.
(a) FULL COPIES of the cases that you are using from the LAW REPORTS.
Only in extreme circumstances should you be permitted to use a print off from Westlaw or any other such Law software. PDFs of the Law Reports themselves can be found on Westlaw at the top right hand side of the case you are viewing. Click "Download in PDF format" and TA DA it appears as if by magic to be a scanned copy of the Law report you are using.

Print offs from Westlaw look well... shit.. not only are you putting yourself at a disadvantage for marks down on your bundle you are also looking unprofessional. If you can't find the PDF on Westlaw then go to the library and photocopy it from the law report itself. There is simply no excuse unless the case is from 1600-1850.

Using print offs from Westlaw can lead to extreme annoyance of the opposition viciously swearing and getting into a tantrum because if you are using a joint bundle they cannot find the correct quotes due to it not being in the same format.

(b) Tabs - these tabs should be either numbered or alphabetised (numbered is prefered) and a contents page should be at the front of the bundle indicating what is at each tab. Again it is not really acceptable to label your tabs "Hadley v Baxendale" or "Victoria Newman Industries" they should be numbered.

(c) A copy of your skeleton argument - now it depends which mooting competition you are in but a mooting argument should really just be what court your hypothetical case is in, grounds of appeal and under each Ground of appeal your submissions, under each submission the authorities you intend to rely upon and learned articles. Neither I or my moot partner believe in reiterating the facts of the present case. A concise skeleton has no need for being more than a page long.

2. Do not read from a speech.

(a) Mooting is really a conversation between you and the judge. It should be a relaxed conversation though sometimes you are put on the spot and it can get heated. You should however be aiming to guide the judge through the law, not just reading him your essay.
(b) This is something I am very guilty of, I often very sneakily only completed my speech the night before a moot, this has several disadvantages. In reality you should finish your moot speech at least a few days before you're actual moot. You then have time to go through it, get some rest rethink it and tweak it if it does not sound right.
(c) Even if you have started off with a speech you can considerably change it down after a few attempts at practising it to bullet points with just the key quotations you need to use, if a speech is well practised then this will be easy.
(d) Cue Cards - not liked by Mr Myerson QC, favoured by all the mooting books. My own opinion, it would be easier to stick to what my mooting partner calls an "expanded skeleton" which is a simplified version of what he is going to say on 4 pieces of paper with all his key quotes on. If this is how you work best then that's fine, however flicking through cue cards at speed is quite difficult, shifting through 4 pieces of paper isn't.

3. Do not read out the moot problem question
(a) When asking the learned judge if he/she is aware of the facts of the case before them and they say a "brief" summary, that is what they want, a brief summary. Please try and refrain from reading out the entire moot problem as it was given to you!
(b) This also applies to any other case you are citing, unless the case includes Top Grade Pigs, if in that instance it does, the facts of the case must deservedly be fully read out as they are stated in the actual case.

4. Do not tell a judge you will come onto the point they have just asked you about later.
(a) By all means you might tell the judge that you were going to address that specific point later on, however as the point as now been raised you will address his lordship on the point. Merely acknowledging that they have asked you a question and then saying "yes but I would like to continue with my own submissions" is not good practice. Some judges like to test your flexibility.

Please note: that not all judges liked being told that were going to be addressed on that point and you are going to it now, but would prefer you to just deal with the point.

5. Don't stay up all night drinking red bull to get it done.
(a) You will be a shaking nervous wreck, if your voice doesn't sound nervous your hands will definitely give away that you have been up all night.
(b) You should have done enough work spread across a longer period of time to enable that you get all your work done at least a few days before your moot.
(c) I am guilty of both of the above and lost an important moot because of it.

6. Don't play with your quotes.
(a) Don't put emphasis on particular lines of your quotes, read as is. Whilst it may sound (to you) that the law is in your favour a judge may ask you at the end of quoting your passage to read the paragraph properly.
(b) This also applies when you skip words.
(c) This also applies to when you stop a quote before the judgment then considers that the above reasoning is wrong and should be overruled.
(d) To read a long passage or not? - I still don't have enough mooting experience for this and I gather than each individual judge would be different, seeking permission to quote a huge piece of text is advisable, you can point their lordships to the paragraph and particular lines they should be looking to. I was recently told that I shouldn't ask if I could read out the passage, because a judge might turn around and say "no" then where would you be? A few minutes short of your time, unable to put your point across?" If in doubt just read. Though passages should not be to lengthy and normally a judge will ask you "whats the point of this passage Mr X?"

That's it for the time being :)

Another Win!!!!!

Last night myself and my most glorious super lovely partner progressed past the third round of the OUP and are now in the Quarter Finals!!

It was much less intense than mooting in front of Mr Myerson QC, in fact I wasn't asked a single question!

Nor did I have the opportunity to say "Yes m'lord Top Grade Pigs!" which my partner now suggests that I put into every moot speech!

According to the Judge it was close, my lecturer on the other hand said differently.
I think that had the judge not been travelling around 4 different cities that day he might have been less tired and more interested in what I was saying.

In fact I actually caught him NOT paying attention to my learned self. He was flicking through the bundle in a despondent manner as I was reading out a passage from a case I had cited. I proceeded to politely remind his Lordship at which Tab and page we were at to which he was grateful for.

So Yay! We are through to the Quarter Finals!! If only it was the same competition as Bar or Bust then there could have been an epic battle of the bloggers but alas no, different competitions!
I am so determined to get through to the Semi Final's and then the finals!! I was told that I would have made the Finals of my own internal competition if not for having been up all night and had not been shaking from too many red bulls!!

I doubt any moot will top what happened in Leeds though.. but we will have to see..

Moot Hell

I have a moot on Monday and the skeleton is in for tomorrow.
Despite my usual competitiveness, it is the end of term and I have lost all drive to complete my skeleton which will be unusually complex as all the case law is against us.

The moot is on Williams v Roffey, and whether Dave can bind Company X to a promise, which effectively had no consideration. Williams v Roffey says - yes there is a practical benefit that amounts to consideration. However with the part payment of debt and Re SelectMove that says no Williams v Roffey is not compatible with Foakes v Beer..

I'll come up with a decent argument turn up on Monday and hopefully I won't have to use notes.. so this is not a promise. I just want this moot over so I can actually get on with some revision or is that learning?

External Moot

On Wednesday I took the 12 o clock train to Leeds to compete in a national mooting competition.
With five days to prepare for it instead of the month and a half everyone else had I was a bit flustered, I had prepared a script, which everyone in mooting says "don't use a script! Use cue cards instead" Thankfully a faithful Alie of the script approach said for me to stick to what I know how to do, know what you are going to say well enough so that you don't have to read off it.

We pulled into Leeds about 2pm, and went into Leeds University, got lost on the campus, eventually found the building and then I sneaked off for about 3 cigarettes in the freezing cold (the weather was against me) as I tried to calm down my nerves for the moot.

About 4pm the bundle arrived which the hosting team were supposed to prepare. I turned to the copy of Hadley v Baxendale to highlight it and found that it was a print off from Westlaw.
"That's ok" I thought, Hadley is a very old case from the 1850's I wasn't going to berate the other team for not having a copy of it. Then to my horror all the cases were print offs from Westlaw!!! Bad Bad Hosting team. After the hosting team left the room, I went absolutely mental, apologising to my lecturer for my use of fairly prolific language, calmed down and tried to find all my paragraphs in the relevant pages, which took about 20 minutes longer than I had expected due to having to number every page and then scrawl through the text to find my quotes.

The moot:
We awaited in the mock court room, myself being very nervous awaiting the moot judge Mr Simon Myerson QC, so I was doubly shitting myself. He arrived and we got straight onto it, however I forgot where I was and sat down immediately instead of waiting for Mr Myerson to sit down give the judicial nod so that we may rest our tired buttocks. My partner quickly said "Lost stand up!" No doubt the lecturer who accompanied us was slightly dying inside of shame.

The lead respondent for the hosting team started first and I was second. Their argument didn't follow their skeleton which we had been given, so I had lost my 5 minutes of very carefully planned rebuttals. Not too bad I thought, given that Mr Myerson was perhaps the most interventionist judge I have ever encountered whilst mooting, I'm sure it wasn't going to make much difference.

I got up to speak "May it please your Lordship my name is Lost and I appear for the respondents on the first ground of appeal" I referred his Lordship to the first case, and my first highlighted passage, and then all chaos broke loose! "Mr Lost I know the test in Hadley, how does it apply here to what the appellant's have said" "Well my Lord I was going to cover this in my second submission" and then I paused for thought flicked through my pages of notes and said "Yes my Lord if I may refer your Lordship to the case of Victoria Laundry".

It all went well, I think I must have been grilled for about 20-25 minutes, perhaps the low light of it all was being asked to re-read a passage substituting words with the facts of the present case, as I had to then look up the passage and get my stressful head around how to say it!

My highlight, well not until I found out afterwards was a certain emphasis on a particular phrase, which made my lecturer no longer worried about my performance and my partner wet himself slightly.
"If I may refer your Lordship to the case of H Parsons v Uttley Ingham Co, is your Lordship aware of the facts of this case?"
"No I'm not"
"The defendants..."
"Oh yes the Pig case"
"Yes my Lord top grade pigs"

All went well until the final point of my last submission which to be fair was pretty poor and thought up the night before.
"My Lord it is not disproportionate to place a burden of liability on party x, because ... etc"
"Well yes Mr Lost however that isn't a very good point is it?...."
"Yes My Lord, however it is my last point.."
To which I got a laugh and a "Very well Mr Lost"

When I sat down my partner had written me a very sweet note that read "That was magnificent" to which then my face lit up like a beam of hope and I couldn't stop smiling.

Judgement was delivered and we were declared the winners! (Of course we knew this from beginning ;) All in all a good moot, with lots of experience to draw from for the quarter finals of my internal mooting competition, where I shall be mooting in front of QCs/Barristers again!

Lets hope they are just as nice as Mr Myerson and buy us a drink afterwards too!

Short Notice

Due to my recent success in my own internal mooting competition I have been asked to fill in for an external moot next Wednesday. The girl who was originally planning to do it dropped out at the last moment, so amble opportunity for me!!! The problem was circulated early in December and I'm receiving it 5 days before the moot.. luckily I have no seminars next week, otherwise I would be up shit creek without a paddle.

I'm not sure how much I should mention, perhaps evening mentioning that I'm not sure what I should mention is a dead giveaway.. (you'll understand if you are friends with me on facebook)

Needless to say Wednesday will be very interesting!!!

I've also secured a mini with a leading criminal chambers, though the date they have offered me is right in the middle of my final year exams? Hmm exams or work experience...