Moot Court - Practice Brief

Why the lack of updates, you ask?  It's the Moot Court practice brief.  My life has been utterly and completely consumed by this.

Those of you who have followed this blog may have heard me rant and rave about legal writing, and how it is a completely different beast.  Those of you who are either in law school, or have previously attended, know exactly what I am talking about.  Those of you who are in neither category, let me just sum it up by saying legal writing is the slowest, most deliberate, and careful writing you will ever do.  I know, I know, everyone always says what they are doing is the worst.  This is not the case.  I will concede practical tests to nursing programs, I will concede exams to medical school, but legal writing is tough.

That doesn't mean it can't be completely exhilarating when you put something together.  When the arguments start coming together in your head, when you begin to see a brief or memo take form, it is awesome.

Writing a memo with someone else is whole 'nother story.  First of all, everyone has a "writing process."  Mine involves procrastinating, so having a partner actually helps.  I absolutely cannot be unprepared when someone is counting on me.  So that is good.  Plus, the research is easier, as you both read the cases, and even if I miss something, chances are MCP (that's Moot Court Teammate) will catch it.  And when you sit down and start looking at the problem, you get to bounce ideas off each other.

For example, ours is a 4th Amendment issue, that is, search and seizure.  We both read the cases, and the problem.  I thought we should take the approach of arguing how the suspect's actions justified a more thorough search.  She thought we should take the approach of arguing the government's strong interest.  It turns out, we need to do both.

So that is all great, but writing with someone else? That is difficult.  We came up with a decent outline, then sat next to each other, and said "Ok, what should the next sentence be?" We each dictated one, then worked out which was best.  "Ok, next sentence." We each dictated one, then combined them.  Needless to say, we worked for about 7 hours, and wrote 4 pages.  And I thought it was pretty productive.

Now tomorrow, we have to write the last 4.  Then we get to edit.

Side note: With Moot Court this week, for the first time in my life do I understand what other people mean when they say loved ones complain about them never having time.  So far in my life I have always been able to balance the two, but Moot has recently made this near impossible.  So to my loved ones, all I can say is sorry, and thank you for your patience.  I'll be back soon.