Williams College Moot Court

The Williams College Moot Court Team is a program of the Williams College Law Society, and is associated with the American Collegiate Moot Court Association. The mission of the Moot Court Team is to bring students interested in Moot Court together, to empower them, with a basic, general, and practical understanding of appellate advocacy, to compete in tournaments at the local, regional, and national level, and to WIN!!!

What is Moot Court? Moot Court is a simulation of an appellate court proceeding, also known as mock Supreme Court and Supreme Court Simulation. Moot Court involves teams of two student-contestants competing in front of a panel of judges, with briefs and oratory detailing the dimensions of the legal problem before the appellate court. Students argue a hypothetical legal case known as “the competition case.” To do so, students must research the cases and laws cited in “the competition case.” Moot court judges ask students questions and grade the students on the basis of their knowledge of the case, their response to questioning, their forensic skills, and their demeanor. Oral argument lasts 40 minutes (each side gets 20 minutes) and each student is expected to speak for a minimum of 7 minutes. Each competition is sanctioned by The American Collegiate Moot Court Association (AMTA) with practicing judges and attorneys presiding over and scoring the competition.

Moot court is used as an educational tool around the world, and tournaments are currently organized in the United States, in Great Britain, in Canada, in Australia, in New Zealand, and in a number of other countries. Moot court has apparently been featured in legal training for hundreds of years, with origins in medieval England.

What kind of commitment am I making if I join the team? Joining the Moot Court team is a very serious commitment. Writing the brief with your teammate takes a lot of research, time, and collaboration. Once the brief is completed, practice is necessary to perfect your oral arguments and knowledge of the issues involved in the case. Practices will generally be once or twice a week, although the closer it gets to competition time, the more practices there will be. The case generally comes out in early May, regionals are in November, and nationals are in January.

How will this team benefit me in the long run? The Williams College Moot Court Team is an invaluable experience for any student. Participating in Moot Court helps improve communication skills, enhances critical thinking abilities under duress, improves legal research, enhances self-confidence and poise, improves relations with alumni, and for those students performing well enough to enjoy one or more tournament trophies, enhances acceptance rates into law school. It is fun and rewarding. It is challenging, and it is good experience for law school and a legal career. It will teach you how to think, speak, and write in a clearer and more precise manner. You will also meet and network with a variety of important people in the legal, academic, and political community.

Undergraduate moot court also prepares students for both the law school classroom and law school moot court. American legal education relies principally upon the Socratic method of instruction: law students are required to arise upon demand and recite the facts of a case or to expound upon a legal doctrine while under the duress of probing inquiries of the law faculty. And in addition, most, if not all, law schools require moot court.

Who can join the Moot Court Team and how? Any active Williams College student can join. Majors, Concentrations, etc… are not constraints, and you don't not have to plan on going on law school to participate. We seek out charismatic, well spoken people who can think on their feet. Simply contact Emanuel McMiller (elm1) if you wish to join the team.

The 2011-2012 Moot Court Season

This year will be the first year ever that Williams College will compete regionally and nationally in Moot Court. The Law Society hopes to send the maximum of 5 teams (two students each) to regionals, which will take place at Fitchburg State University in Massachusetts. We hope that at least one of these teams will then advance to nationals, which will be held in January of 2012 at Chapman University School of Law in California.

Moot Court Calendar

Case is available now (See links below) September 15, Organizational Meeting September 18-24, Tryouts October 1, Team Selection October 11, Briefs are due November 18-19, Regionals January 13-14, Nationals

To contact us by email: WilliamsCollegeMootCourt@gmail.com

We also have a website: http://williamscollegelawsociety.com/mootcourt/

Or check us out on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Williams-College-Moot-Court/128258183914964