Moot Court Update

I feel like all I ever write about anymore is Moot Court...

My coach/advisor/master of all things legal and written hailed the team to his office for a review of the practice brief.  It started off well enough, with the comment "I was surprised, I didn't think you guys would be able to write at all."

Moving on from that, he explained that this is because you don't get very many opportunities to practice and perfect good legal writing in law school.  And this is entirely true.  As Coach pointed out, even when you do have writing assignments, they are always framed in the panic that is exams, classes, internships, and life.  Therefore, you often don't get a chance to do that really deep, high level, word by word editing that you would with a work assignment.  Also, the first few assignments are overwhelmed by learning a new system for citations, analysis, style, even pagination, that make it difficult to really refine your skills.

So, low expectations, well exceeded.  Not so much an insult as a statement of fact.

However, he then proceeded to utterly destroy our beautiful little brief.  In some major, major ways.  Things like point headings, completely missing the standard of review, and a failing to apply the legal test we painstakingly described.

Two major points in our defense:  First of all, this was a closed universe problem, and we simply didn't have access to cases that supported certain legal elements that were lacking in the brief.  You can't discuss legal presumptions if none of the cases you have to cite to do either.  Secondly, our coach is an awesome writer.  Although his resume includes time at nationally prestigious firms and work on Supreme Court cases, I really had no idea just how good he was at appellate writing.  I was blown away as he slowly and calmly pointed out the narrowest distinctions in the technical aspects while weaving in subtle but beautiful style points.

I am really nerding out right now, but it is somewhat inspirational to get to sit and learn from a master.  I have been carrying around a brief he wrote while in practice, treating it like an idol.  Seriously, I checked my bag every five minutes to make sure it was ok, but ended up leaving my jacket on the train.