Putting law into practice | The art

Elena Wood, Amy Choi and Zoe Zhu who were invited to Bond University.

PUTTING LAW

INTO PRACTICE

eams from Dio have competed in both the Australian and New Zealand mooting competitions this year. Mooting competitions are an exercise used in law schools to help students learn how to develop a solid legal argument. It is based on the realworld scenario of lawyers presenting the arguments for and against taking a given case to court. While in the real world lawyers would select the relevant legislation and case law to support their case themselves, in the competition students are given this material. This makes the level of research manageable, but also constrains them to find useful parallels between the competition case and the case law provided.

Unlike debating, where the focus is on using emotive persuasive techniques and the winning team is often the one best able to destroy the opponent’s argument, in mooting the focus is on knowing the law and building your own argument. There are elements of rebuttal involved, but that is not the key skill required. Putting the oral submission together is a timeconsuming and demanding task, yet the competitors do not always get to present their argument in its entirety. The judge will interrupt them to ask questions of clarification and to challenge their conclusions, forcing students to think on their feet and draw on their knowledge of the case and the relevant legislation to defend their position. The time limit of 10 minutes is not extended, so if there are too many questions, contestants also have to be able to quickly summarise their remaining points to finish on time.

At the secondary school level, it is seen as a learning experience for prospective law students. Therefore, while it is expected that court protocol be learned and followed, students are not penalised for the occasional mistake. The benefits to students of this competition are manifold, whether or not they decide to study law in the future. They have to distinguish between a purely logical argument and one that is based in the nuances of the law. Learning that there might be a difference between these two things is an education in itself! They have to think on their feet and apply sometimes quite esoteric legal principles to concrete situations, then defend their interpretation when questioned by a trained lawyer.

Elena Wood, Zoe Zhu and Amy Choi were invited to Bond University on the Gold Coast in early May. Having competed in the New Zealand competition last year, they found the experience of a slightly different approach challenging and rewarding. The expectations about following court protocol were enforced more strictly and the judges asked more questions. As in New Zealand, this was all done in a supportive and educative manner, leaving them exhilarated by the experience, despite not making it past the first round.

A few days earlier, Francesca Masfen, Dianne Ma, Deborah Huang, Aarushi Parasumpuria and Aimee Crosbie travelled to Waikato University for the heats of the New Zealand competition. They had been assisted in their preparations by Allegra Wilson and Helen Kim, who were unable to compete due to commitments to the School production. Francesca, Dianne and Deborah were among the top eight teams in the country and competed in the semi finals on 20 June. Our team performed extremely well in the semi finals, but unfortunately did not get through to the finals.