Mooting Instructions
WHAT IS MOOT COURT?
Moot Court is a role play exercise. It allows students to practice making oral arguments to convince a panel of judges (also students) to agree with them on a point of law. It replicates elements of oral arguments and written submittions presented to appellate courts - such as the the Supreme Court of Canada.
Court Assignments Ackworth through Millar 105C (Updated Thursday, Feb. 20)
Court Assignments Najibi through Yip 105A (Updated Thursday, Feb. 20)
WHY ARE WE MOOTING?
Every case we will study in this course (every case we will moot) was a significant legal event in shaping the doctrines, tests, principles, and interpretive frameworks for law as it effects children, youths, and families in Canada today.
Mooting provides a situation that develops verbal skills, reasoning and anlaytic ablities, and the recall of substantive factual information about the law. It will also provide a weekly focal point as you prepare for the exams. Case briefing and mooting are inter-related skills and they are the primary educational vehicles of our course.
Over the term students will have a chance to play all roles. The most important point of assessment will be your level of effort and preparation. Every Wednesday in Lecture, I will provide you with a review of the next case's facts, legal issues (or questions), what the court held and why it matters for childhood and youth in Canada. Along with the mooting preparation homework, the reading, this lecture will prepare you for your assigned role.
It is perfectly 'ordinary' for people to feel anxiety when they are asked to role-play - that is partly because the learning experience is intense. There is a strong relationship between your effort before and during the moots, and the degree to which you will learn the case law and perform well on the final exam. These disputes are inherently interesting and memorable, and their outcomes changed the lives of countless Canadians.
This is role play and so your authentic opinion is not as important as the learning process. Focus on determining what the legal questions are and how to answer them in your side's favour. Imagine in advance what questions you are likely to hear and what your adversaries will say. Listening to what is being said in the moment is a valuable life skill. We are evaluating your speaking, analytic, listening, and rhetorical skills - and especially your effort. We are interested in your responsiveness to others, and energy. Don't fuss about whether you are assigned to the 'right' side or whether you 'win.'
WHAT ROLES WILL WE PLAY?
1) Counsel
2) Justice
3) Bailiff (Time Keeper & Moderator)
4) The Public
1- Counsel for the Appellants and Respondents do not address each other directly during the moot exercise, they address the Justices - the Court. The job of counsel is to frame the legal question for the Justices, and explain why the they should answer this question in their client's favour. In their opening statements counsel will say things like - "Your Honours, today the issue before this court is..." and then provide an answer to this issue that is conducive to what their side hopes to achieve.
Counsel will do the following things when constructing their arguments and questions:
1 - Frame the facts of the case in a way that produces a legal question that you can answer in a way that supports your side.
2 - Explain why the court should answer these questions in a way that supports your stance or presents a problem for your opponents.
3 - Reference the legislation or doctrine (or other forms of law) cited in the reading and interpret it to support what you are asking the justices to hold.
4 - Borrow reasoning from the court opinion that supports your stance. Sometimes this might be from lecture; sometimes from the dissenting opinions.
5 - Connect your claims to the impact that the decision will have on children and youth, and/or larger social and political relationships.
Counsel will avoid these things in their delivery and preparation:
1 - Do not object or speak out of order; this is an appeal. If your opponents or the justices present an issue or fact in a manner prejudicial to your side, note it and address when it is your turn.
2 - Avoid repeating the arguments of the other counsel on your side. This requires that you coordinate with your team.
3 - Avoid reading statements quickly in monotone. Slow down, enunciate clearly, express the logic of your points by pausing at the proper point. Timing matters. Make eye contact with the justices. Whether you work with a write statement or bullet-points, practice and time yourself.
4 - Do not collude with the opposition or with the justices. You are free to study together, but if students go so far as to read planted questions as justices to display prepared answers by counsel, they have lost the spirit of academic integrity and one of the benefits of role play: thinking on your feet.
2- Justices ask questions of counsel relevant to the issue as the Court framed it, and based on what you hear counsel say. Prepare questions in advance, but listen carefully and seek openings to challenge the positions that counsel is taking in the moot. Don't be rude, but be assertive, interrupt as needed, and press the counsel to explain their answers further when they are unsatisfied.
Justices will do the following things:
1 - Ask questions that show an understanding of the key facts and issues of the case as it was decided.
2 - Ask questions that show an attentiveness to what counsel has offered in the moot court.
3 - Follow-up when counsel's answers are inadequate.
4 - Work together to avoid repeating the same questions (unless it was insufficiently addressed).
5 - Create coherent decisions with both holdings on the issues and judgments on what is to be done. Your decisions need not replicate the historic one, nor do they need to be unanimous.
3 - Bailiffs - In real courts these officers follow instructions from the judge; for our moot courts, we need the Bailiffs to take charge of the procedure and keep us on time. In fact, we give the judge's gavel to the Bailiffs. The Bailiff that calls the moot court together or adjourns the moot court is called the "Bailiff Announcer." The one that keeps time is the "Bailiff Time Keeper."
Bailiffs will do the following things:
1 - Send out a Moot Court Script via email to their court on the Monday, prior to the Tuesday Moot. Click here.
2 - Ensure that the majesty of the court is followed by communicating with the Justices at entry ("All Rise") and reading the annoucement ("Hear ye, Hear ye").
3 - Keeping the Court on time by communicating with counsel and justices as appropriate and directing the court through the mooting process.
Some weeks you will be assigned the role of 4 - The Public. You will take notes during the proceedings, and at the conclusion (after the Justices rule), you'll be asked to tell us what you found most important in this case. Members of the 'Public' will add to their weekly brief a second sheet of lined paper that provides no more than four sentences which tell us: 1) what was the most important exchange of the Moot Court, and 2) why it was critical. This will be handed in to the TA or professor evaluating the moot court.
The Public will do the following things:
1 - Speak at the end of the moot court and say what they find most significant about the case of the week.
2 - Add to their brief (not notes) a very brief handwritten statement identifying and explaining the most critical exchange of the moot.
HOW WILL THE MOOTING PROCESS GO?
The Bailiffs should work together before the moot to prepare a written script, so they can remember the steps and they should distribute this script via email to all member of their mooting group by the Monday night prior to the Tuesday moot. Here is a form for the Bailiffs to follow scripting their moot.
The Counselors for the Appellants and Respondents should also collaborate prior to the Moot on Tuesday. I will email to everyone an Excel sheet with the role schedule and emails to allow contact eachother.
Prior to step 1 the Bailiffs assemble the Justices in the hallway for entry:
Step 1) Call to order [1 minute]
The Bailiff - Announcer begins the session by calling the court to order, announcing the name of the court, the date, and the names of the presiding judges (use our names). "Hear ye hear ye, all rise. [the name of the court] convenes on this day (state the case date), the honorable Justices so and so and whosowhere presiding."
The Bailiff - Announcer then announces the parties such as "The honourable justices will hear arguments in the matter between RESPONDANT and APPELLENT." Then, s/he turns to the Counsel for the Appellant calling them by name, "Mr. whatever, Ms. whomever... you have 10 minutes to make your opening statement to the court."
Step 2) Opening Statements and Questions [24 minutes]
With 4 or 5 Counselors for each side, they will have to prepare as teams before the moot and decide how to divide the time. Every counselor must speak in the course of the moot. The Appellants go first, followed by the Respondents.
During your opening statements the Justices will listen and make questioning notes. Counselors should address the court with phrases such as "Your Honours," or "This Honorable Court." They may say, "Your Honours, the question before this courts is X..." to open the issues of the case.
The Bailiff - Timekeeper is responsible to draw the opening statement of the Appellant to a close at 6 minutes.
The Bailiff - Announcer calls the Justices to question the Counsel for the Appellants; The Bailiff Timekeeper starts another 6 minute timer.
All Justices are expected to pose a question to one side or the other. Justices will address Counsel as 'Mr.' or 'Ms.' or 'Counselor.' Counsel will address the Justices as individuals with the title "Honourable Justice Last Name," or "Mister/Madam Justice." Justices may interrupt Counsel, but Counsel must stop talking when interrupted by the Justices.
The Bailiff - Announcer then turns to the Counsel for the Respondent calling them by name, "Mr. whatever, Ms. whomever... you have 6 minutes to make your opening statement to the court."
The proceedings for the Respondent are the same as they were for the Appellant (opening statement of 6 minutes followed by 6 minutes of questioning).
The Bailiffs draw step two to a close around 24 minutes into the moot. The Bailiff - Announcer proclaims a 5 minute recess for the counselors, at which time Counsel leaves the court room to confer on their rebuttal statements in the common areas of Labatt Hall.
Step 3) Recess for Counsel [5 minutes]
During this time Counsel for each side should have a quick private exchange about the rebuttal strategy.
Step 4) Rebuttal from Counsel [6 minutes]
We should come out of the recess for counsel about 30 minutes into the Moot, the Bailiff Annoucer calls the Counsel for the Appellant to make a 3 minute rebuttal to the ideas from the Respondent team. The rebuttal is your opportunity to contradict the arguments that might defeat your side of the debate and to recast the issue and why it should be answered in your favour. There are no questions during the statement of rebuttal.
When time comes, the Bailiff-Timekeeper announces that time is up and that the Respondents have 3 minutes. When the time is up on the Respondents, the Bailiff-Announcer calls for a recess for the bench.
At this point everyone (including the instructor) leaves the room so the Justices can discuss their ruling in private.
Step 5) Recess for the Bench [5 minutes]
The Justices discuss among themselves how they wish to decide the case. Though the Justices should have played a roled framed by the historic opinion during the statement and question periods, they are not bound by how the case was historically decided. You may respond to the issue posed in the case as you see fit.
This said, you must craft a statement which frames the issue before the court in terms of a legal question or questions, the answers to this question or questions, and assert a legal principle that comes from this answer. The Justices may produce as many opinions as they like, but the judges have to determine who is going to read out which opinions.
Step 6) Pronouncement [5 minutes]
Coming out of the Judge Recess we should have about 20 minutes left of the 60 minute mooting session, the Bailiff-Announcer asks if the Justices have decision(s) to offer and who will read them. Taking this answer the Bailiff asks the Justices to read out their decision(s) and announce who supports each.
The Majority speaks first, and (if they exist) the concurring second, and the dissent last.
Step 7) The Public [6 minutes]
All come out of their roles, and the instructor calls upon each of member of the The Public to say a few words about the significance of this case.
WHAT ARE MY MOOTING ASSIGNMENTS?
You will receive your mooting assignments via email, as well as the names and email addresses of your mooting mates which will help you team-up and prepare for the weekly moot. Below are links to the first three Moot Court assignments without the emails that you will receive later.
Court Assignments Ackworth through Millar 105C (Updated Thursday, Feb. 20)
Court Assignments Najibi through Yip 105A (Updated Thursday, Feb. 20)