De Montfort Law School Schools and Colleges Mooting Competition 2016
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De Montfort Law School Schools and Colleges Mooting Competition 2016 Vm/lawclub/mootinghandbook12 1 vm/lawclub/mootinghandbook12 2 CONTENTS Introduction 2 Programme 3 Mooting Instructions 4 Contract books and looking up cases 7 Round One Moot 9 Round Two Moot 10 Moot Final 11 Background Notes on Formation of Contract 12 vm/lawclub/mootinghandbook12 3 INTRODUCTION Welcome! The De Montfort Schools and Colleges Mooting Competition is now in its thirteenth year. We hope you find participating in moots an enjoyable and rewarding experience. If you do go on to study law at university, we trust that you will have found it useful to have had a first shot at it before starting on your degree course. Most university law schools run student mooting competitions and also enter teams for national competitions. All the moots in our competition are designed for students who have not studied A-level law. We have included a set of background notes on the law of contract formation (offer and acceptance). Traditionally a contract is formed when an offer has been accepted. All the moots depend on arguing whether a valid offer has (or has not) been made and whether acceptance has (or has not) taken place. If you need to contact the Law School the telephone number is 257 7177 and you can e-mail on [email protected] Andy Robinson Law Club Organiser vm/lawclub/mootinghandbook12 4 PROGRAMME Tuesday 19 January 2016 Andy Robinson will explain how the mooting competition is organised, followed by a demonstration moot by two De Montfort University students. After refreshments you will have the opportunity to sign up for the Leicestershire Schools and Colleges Mooting Competition, and get advice on how to present your moot. Tuesday 2 February 2016 First round of the mooting competition. The best eight teams (on their point scores) from the first round will be invited to take part in the second round. Tuesday 23 February 2016 Second round of the mooting competition. These will be arranged individually with the contestants. The best two teams from the second round will be invited to take part in the final. Tuesday 15 March 2016 The Final of the Mooting Competition which is open to all the members of Law Club, parents and teachers to watch. This session of Law Club will start at 6.30pm and will probably end slightly earlier than usual. The moot will be judged by Emeritus Professor Richard Card who was formerly Head of the Law School. vm/lawclub/mootinghandbook12 5 MOOT INSTRUCTIONS 1. Moots are legal debates in a hypothetical courtroom setting, in which students play the role of counsel and present legal arguments based on a fictitious legal action. Use the offer and acceptance chapter(s) in contract textbooks and the material on formation of contract at the back of this booklet to establish the legal points at issue and then go to the original cases - both for your case and for your opponents - so that you can attempt to distinguish their cases and contradict their arguments. 2. You will sign up to play the role of: • leading (senior) counsel for the appellant or • leading counsel for the respondent or • junior counsel for the appellant or • junior counsel for the respondent. 3. Your part in the moot should last ten minutes including time for the judge to stop your speech and ask questions. The whole moot is scheduled to last an hour. The judge will time your speech and will ask you to bring your remarks to a close if you are over-running your time. 4. Most judgements in a moot problem question are divided into two, the leading counsel takes point (i) and the junior counsel point (ii). 5. Leading counsel for the appellants, who is the first speaker, must begin by introducing all the counsel. The speech should start with "My Lord/My Lady I am Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms ........and I am representing the appellant with learned junior Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms...... The respondents are represented by my learned colleague Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms.... and his/her learned junior Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms..." 6. Refer to the judge(s) as My Lord, Your Lordships, My Lady, Your Ladyships as the case may be. 7. At the start of your speech tell the judge what you intend to show in your argument. 8. If you disagree with a point made by a judge when you are speaking then reply 'With all due respect your Lordship' and then tell him/her why you think they are wrong. If you feel compelled to agree with the judge on a point that goes against your case, you reply ' As your Ladyship pleases' (not advisable unless forced!). Details on how to address judges are given on the judiciary web-site, http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/you-and-the-judiciary/going-to-court/what-do-i-call-judge vm/lawclub/mootinghandbook12 6 9. Some students say that dressing up smartly helps them to take on the role of a barrister. There is no need to buy a suit especially for your moot. Dark trousers/skirt and a smart blouse/shirt is fine. You should stand to deliver your speech. 10. Finish your submission with ' Thus I ask you to find for my client' or some similar phrase. 11. The order of counsel will be: • Leading counsel for the appellants • Leading counsel for the respondents • Junior counsel for the appellants • Junior counsel for the respondents There is no right of reply. 12. Please submit to the judge at the beginning of the moot a photocopy of the pages of the cases that your will cite with the relevant passages highlighted or underlined. There is no need to photocopy the whole case - just the relevant page. Your collection of photocopied pages is often referred to as your “bundle”. 13. Marks are awarded for presentation, so remember to look at the judge and not to speak too quickly. The best mooters do not read their scripts but have memorised their speech and use the script merely as a memory aid. Remember that textbooks are rarely cited in court so you must quote from the judgements in the cases - DO NOT CITE • from case headnotes (i.e. the synopsis at the beginning of the case report) • from speeches made by counsel (only speeches from judges) • from textbooks (including case books) • from a quotation from one case that is mentioned in a second case Cite cases correctly: Fisher AND Bell is correct even though it is written Fisher v Bell In civil cases describing the case as Fisher versus Bell or Fisher 'vee' Bell is wrong. Try to find some good citations from the cases. You should give the page reference and paragraph of the report “May I refer your Lordship/Ladyship to Volume 1 of the All England Reports for 1946 at page 63 paragraph X…where Lord…says…[read out the precise words from the Report]” 14. Do not invent more facts in the scenario, just discuss the facts that you are given and the relevant law. 15. You might find some useful tips on the national web-site www.mootingnet.org.uk which is designed for university student mooters. vm/lawclub/mootinghandbook12 7 MARKING GUIDELINES CONTRACT MOOTS A PRESENTATION (50%) General Presentation (25%) • Voice, clarity, diction and speed • Eye contact • Keeping to time • Responding to questions Structure and coherence of the argument (25%) B LEGAL CONTENT (50%) Accuracy, relevance and selection of the law in the general argument (25%) Law used in responding to questions (10%) Use of authorities and references (15%) vm/lawclub/mootinghandbook12 8 BOOKS TO CONSULT All the following contract textbooks have a chapter(s) on formation of contract (offer and acceptance). You may be able to borrow them from your local library. These are the up to date editions. Any editions published since 2002 would not be seriously out of date on this topic. Ewan McKendrick Contract Law Macmillan Lawrence Koffman & Elizabeth Macdonald The Law of Contract Tolley Jill Poole Textbook on Contract OUP Jill Poole Casebook on Contract OUP M.P.Furmston Cheshire, Fifoot and Furmston's Law of Contract OUP G.H.Treitel The Law of Contract Sweet & Maxwell J.Adams & R.Brownsword Understanding Contract Law Sweet & Maxwell H.G.Beale,W.D.Bishop & M.P.Furmston Contract Cases and Materials Butterworths Catherine Elliott and Contract Law Pearson Longman Frances Quinn And there are the following books about mooting Paul Dobson and The Observer Book of Moots Barry Fitzpatrick Christopher Kee The Art of Argument: A Guide to Mooting (CUP) Tim Kaye and Blackstone’s Book of Moots (Blackstone) Lynne Townley John Snape and The Cavendish Guide to Mooting (Cavendish) Gary Watt John Snape How to Moot (OUP) and Gary Watt vm/lawclub/mootinghandbook12 9 Looking up cases in hard copy reports For example Pharmaceutical Society of GB v Boots [1953] 1 QB 401; [1953] 1 All ER 482; [1953] 2 WLR 427 was reported in 1953. The first number after the date is the volume number. QB stands Queen’s Bench, All ER stands for All England Reports and WLR stands for Weekly Law Reports. The last number is the page number. All three sets of reports are in the DMU Law Library. ER stands for English Reports and are a set of old (pre 1865) cases reprinted from the original reports. The complete set is in the DMU Law Library. Looking up cases on web-sites DMU subscribes to “Lexis Library” and though the general public cannot access Lexis, you will be given a code that you can use to look up the cases on this web- site.