The Aftermath

°o° On This Day in 1966, Walt was diagnosed as having lung cancer. :(

The Moot Court Rundown:

I arrived in costume (my interview suit) at the law school around five o’clock, on the theory that Murphy and that stupid law of his would throw me some sort of curveball. Turned out I did have the time of my argument correct (7:30), but you never know... I could have been wrong.

I was dressed and lying on my back on a couch in the commons area walking to Mom when my partner showed up, reassuring me of the place and time. She has turned out to be a blessing - totally on top of things, and she cares about doing well just as much as I do. It’s immensely helpful not to have to contend with a slacker, as my sister has had to do lately. They’re such a killjoy. And killeffort. Basically just a giant drain on society, the losers.

Our arguments were in the Mock Court Room. We walked in and my partner and I sat on one side with our opponents on the other. There were three actual District Court judges towering over us on their little Judge’s bench, peering over their spectacles with looks of bored and detached vindictiveness (or perhaps that was just my imagination? Nahh....) There was also a rather bored-looking proctor, some hapless 1L that had been recruited to keep time on the premise that he would be able to “learn” by listening to us. He seemed just about as bored as it’s possible for a young, otherwise bright-eyed and bushy-tailed twentysomething to be. Poor dude. His only job for three hours was to click a stopwatch, and hold up little signs that say “5 minutes,” “2 minutes,” “1 minute” and “Time.”

Each partner on each team argues two issues. My partner went first, then her opponent, then me, then my opponent; finally, my partner and I both approached the bench for rebuttal. I shook like a leaf all through my partner’s presentation, as she was doing so well (and had so improved since the practice round) that I was suffering severe anxiety anticipating my impending disaster of a performance.

Then... her opponent approached the podium. I had presumed the two guys from section “A” to be reasonably intelligent fellows, but he lamboled up to his spot and spread out almost three trees’ worth of unorganized documents with small type... and proceeded, in a soft, hesitant monotone that made me want to light a match behind him, mosey through some semblance of an argument. It sounded like he hadn’t rehearsed the thing at all, instead relying on his ability to “wing it.” I don’t wish ill on other people, particularly in such difficult situations, but my confidence surged.

Sufficiently buoyed in morale, I approached the podium and began. My voice shook as I recited my memorized introduction ((“ May it please the court? Good evening, Your Honors, my name is... and I and my co-counsel represent the Appellant in this matter. This Court should reverse the District Court’s grant of the Appellee’s motion for summery judgment and enable the Appellant to continue operating his barbershop services in the Bolton area while using his surname in connection with the business because his business interior does not infringe upon the trade dress of the Appellee and the use of his surname in the ‘Puck Doherty’ logo does not infringe upon the unregistered trademark of the Appellee and thus constitutes fair use under the Lanham Act”), but I only had to glance down at my prepared speech outline once or twice throughout my entire eight minutes of argument (I reserved two for rebuttal). And whenever the judges asked a question, I was able to shoot back an answer without reservation or hesitation. It was awesome.

My opponent was just as disorganized and unrehearsed as his partner, so I totally lucked out. The judges nailed him with questions based on the points that I had made in my argument, and he paused quite often before answering because, apparently, I had made rather sufficient points. I scribbled down four points that stood out, and then approached the bench with “Your Honors, I have four brief points for rebuttal...” and pounded them out in my two minutes with time to spare. None of the judges asked questions, so I must have made sound arguments.

All three judges offered criticism at the end. I apparently need to shorten my memorized introduction (although that’s only according to one of them - another said the long one helped) and work on being less nervous at the beginning (as I’m reciting my introduction). They said I had a very well-organized outline, had mastered the facts and made good use of them, made very sound and convincing arguments, made excellent eye contact (are they kidding”!) and recovered well after answering questions by diving back into my planned outline without missing a beat. What do you know.

Next Wednesday we have to argue “off-brief” (this week’s argument was called “on-brief”), which essentially means we have to argue the exact same issues but for the opposing side - I have to argue for the appellee instead of the appellant. Hmm.

After several weeks of running on adrenaline, I’m now absolutely exhausted. I lay down last night on my favorite position, on the floor with a pillow lodged under my chest, to write in my journal, and I ell asleep in the middle of the third word. I slept all night on the floor and woke up this morning with, literally, a big metal indentation down my left cheek from the binding of the journal. My face must have just dropped out of nowhere.

Weird Al on Jay Leno tonight - should be interesting. Looking forward to coming home tomorrow. Thankfully, because my tax professor is out of town, I get to split at 10:15, which might actually put me home at a reasonable time considering construction on the Big Bad Toll of Terror is completed... but there’s still two others that could pose serious issues, so I won’t speak too soon.