M.S.E.L. Students Blog

(Now in case you’re thinking “you’re kidding, Sally — you say ’so yeah’ way too much in your blogs,” let me just claim that I do that on purpose to keep the blogging informal, even conversational, and I am actually capable of writing something relatively professional-sounding when necessary.  I think.  But for whatever reason I tend to think that blogging, by its nature, should be fairly colloquial.  That may be an unjustified opinion, but we all have our idiosyncrasies.  But I’m off on a tangent now.  So yeah.)

So I had my oral argument on Tuesday morning.  Oh my goodness.  I could have used an extra day or two to work on my brief, which was due last Friday and probably would have been better if, at the last minute, I’d suddenly been given an extension on the deadline (however, if the deadline had been later to start with, I would have just procrastinated longer to get to work on the brief and it would have ended up just as sucky).  So my brief wasn’t as good as I would have liked, and there were improvements I would have made if time permitted, but I’m still holding out some hope that my brief wasn’t totally horrible either (at least until it is returned to me with a grade that says otherwise).  I like to think that it was relatively coherent and somewhat logical and that I did an acceptably decent job of following the conclusion-rule-application-conclusion format.  I know it could have been better, but maybe it wasn’t bad enough to merit the word “NO” scribbled across the top as the professor’s feedback.  (As an undergraduate I once had a professor who graded some students’ exams that way.  But not mine, of course!  )

Oral argument is quite another matter.  At home, on my couch, thinking about the case and penciling notes on my opposing counsel’s brief and in my notebook, it all makes perfect sense in my mind.  But when I step up to the lectern to explain all this for the judge (professor), somehow my mind doesn’t repeat all the same brilliant (heh) things it told me in the days before.  Yes, I know, I should prepare really good notes, in large bold font for easy reference, in proper order, so I’ll know exactly what to say.  I should, really.  And I meant to.  But in the days leading up to the performance, I found myself unable to work it in due to extenuating factors, I guess.  Or something.  So yeah.  I wasn’t well prepared, and it showed.

Also I felt like a tool getting up to make basically the same arguments that were already written out in my brief.  And I’d never done this sort of thing before, so even if I’d been told what to expect, it was still a new experience.  I seemed to especially have trouble getting back on track after being asked a question.  I liked being asked questions, though.  I really did.  Some questions that I expected didn’t get asked, and some that I didn’t expect, did.  Some I couldn’t answer and I had to say that the information wasn’t in my facts.

So what all this boils down to is that I need to make a habit of preparing myself better before ever speaking in front of anyone about anything of importance, but at least now I have an idea of what the whole oral argument thing is really like — an idea from personal experience, rather than mere description from someone else.  There’s just no substitute for experience.

And my writing, for all its flaws, is much better than my speaking (which isn’t saying much).  So yeah.