League Policies
Excellence in Moot Court competition requires a large pool of judges with legal expertise, Moot Court experience, or a high commitment to studying and preparing. This experience or preparation is important because argumentation in Moot Court has a different aim and imagined audience than our other debate events. In policy and value debate, we ask students to communicate effectively with people from all walks of life because we want them to be able to speak well into the varied types of cultural and political discussions where we each have a voice. However, the simulated audience for Moot Court is composed of Supreme Court Justices who alone hold the final authority to decide on interpretations of constitutional law. Therefore, students must learn to craft persuasion that works within that legal context. Appropriate arguments for an appellate court will generally be very different from arguments that would persuade members of the general public. This means that, ideally, Moot Court judges need to be familiar enough with matters of constitutional law to discern which arguments are appropriate for the simulated context. Hosting our tournaments online helps us broaden the available judge pool, but we need constant help with recruiting enough well-qualified judges to give competitors the excellent feedback we aspire to provide. Participating families must commit to help us with this task by thinking of themselves as part of the judge recruitment team throughout the season and by having at least one parent study and prepare to judge as needed.