Sunday, April 01, 2007
Moot Points
Because I am an amazing humanitarian in addition to a being an exceptional legal scholar, I volunteered to help judge a moot court competition yesterday. For those who are unfamiliar with moot court, it's an exercise in which law students spend months researching and arguing a made-up case where people with comical names somehow get tangled up in multiple cutting-edge Constitutional issues. They (the students, not the made-up people) go before panels of judges who generally research the issues to be covered while watching episodes of Laverne & Shirley on Nick at Night the day before the competition and answer questions so random they may as well have been drawn from the advice column section of Seventeen magazine. Back in the day, I was a moot court "best oralist" myself (not as dirty as it sounds), which won me the distinction of getting to argue my fake case before some woman from Canada I'd never heard of before. I decided to open with a joke, of course.
But anyway, I was on the other side of the bench this weekend, and it was pretty awesome. I couldn't really decide whether my judicial role model should be more Wapner or Scheindlin, so I just decided to act as though I'd suffered a head wound and couldn't fully control my behavior. I interrupted, I badgered, I argued, I stared off into the distance as though totally unaware of anything anyone was saying; in short, I was the total model of judicial perfection. I stopped short of throwing things, but that was really just because I wanted to save something for next year. Maybe I can also bring my own robe.
Because I am an amazing humanitarian in addition to a being an exceptional legal scholar, I volunteered to help judge a moot court competition yesterday. For those who are unfamiliar with moot court, it's an exercise in which law students spend months researching and arguing a made-up case where people with comical names somehow get tangled up in multiple cutting-edge Constitutional issues. They (the students, not the made-up people) go before panels of judges who generally research the issues to be covered while watching episodes of Laverne & Shirley on Nick at Night the day before the competition and answer questions so random they may as well have been drawn from the advice column section of Seventeen magazine. Back in the day, I was a moot court "best oralist" myself (not as dirty as it sounds), which won me the distinction of getting to argue my fake case before some woman from Canada I'd never heard of before. I decided to open with a joke, of course.
But anyway, I was on the other side of the bench this weekend, and it was pretty awesome. I couldn't really decide whether my judicial role model should be more Wapner or Scheindlin, so I just decided to act as though I'd suffered a head wound and couldn't fully control my behavior. I interrupted, I badgered, I argued, I stared off into the distance as though totally unaware of anything anyone was saying; in short, I was the total model of judicial perfection. I stopped short of throwing things, but that was really just because I wanted to save something for next year. Maybe I can also bring my own robe.
