Moot Court Blues--Finale

Well, my appeals argument is over. And it went well. Much better than I thought it would. At the time of my last post, I was worried. Worried that I didn't know the facts and the law well enough. That I wouldn't have time to get up to speed. That I wouldn't look convincing in my arguments. That I would fall apart during questioning. We had to make our appeals in front of a panel of three lawyer judges, and who wants to look bad in that situation?

I worried because I was exhausted, and rather than staying up late every night last week to work on it, I kept falling asleep early. I needed to memorize my argument, and there was no time. On top of that, I was going to a concert the night before my argument. WTF?

But I pulled it off. I am a good memorizer, which is good. When I went to bed the night before, I felt fairly confident I could recite most of my argument without reading it, which is a big no-no.

Luck was with me. I woke up the morning of my oral argument and I was not nervous. I WAS NOT NERVOUS. Unbelievable! I guess I felt like this was my best effort under the circumstances (you could however argue about the circumstances) so my attitude was take it or leave it.

In front of the judges, I held my own. I could state the facts without looking at my paper. I didn't falter. They started asking me questions, and I knew my case well enough to answer them (at least most of the questions. ) Their questions highlight pretty quickly whether you are prepared or not. I actually got into the conversation with the judges and didn't even hear them call time.

I could have done better of course, but I did OK. And OK feels darn good.

Later, some other people told me I did well. (Some others did falter up there.) We still lost our case because we had bad facts. The teacher said so. The case was designed for us to lose. But he wanted us to experience what it is like to have a case with bad facts. Bad facts make bad law, they always say.

I did not want to be the one from our team doing the oral argument. But I was the only one who could do it due to time constraints. The interesting thing is I kind of liked appealing the case. I didn't mind being in front of the judges. It didn't scare me. And that is good.