In addition to "UCLA Law Review - rejected candidate" I can now add to my resume "UCLA Moot Court Honors Program - quitter". I had polish, but now I've got shine.

I signed up for Moot Court last week. I actually thought it sounded fun, compared to the law review write-on -- you know, show up in a fake court, wear a suit, do some fake oral argument.

I guess I was hoping that we would be 'mooting', oh I don't know, a personal injury case or something. Car accident. Dog bite. Something salt-of-the-earth.

What I forgot to figure in was -- law students. Would law students actually do moot court around a dog bite? Oh for gods sake no. What was I thinking?

The first surprise was that we had to do a large written brief. Yeah, I guess that's part of going to court. The Supreme Court, anyways. The court an appellate lawyer is least likely to find herself in during her career. Well OK, I can deal.

Then I ended up with a constitutional issue. That's cool. But then I looked more closely and realized that I wasn't being asked to argue the constitutional violation inside my client's case, I was being asked to argue a large and abstract constitutional law proposition. WTF?!

Wait it's those pesky law students again! Look I don't know about you ... and god bless the people who make it through moot court ... but I can't think of anything more boring than arguing large issues of constitutional law. Because it's vague, it's shapeless, the caselaw is blowin' in the wind, and the outcomes almost always come down to the predictable political moods of the justices.

But the law review write-on six months ago was a huge constitutional law question too. And it was the year before. Why are all these student-run competitions based on con law?

Perhaps because con law serves the same purpose in student competitions as thunderstorms do in movies. It adds drama. It makes you think something important is going on when it's not. It's ok to speak or write in a windy, pompous way about con law in a way that you can't speak or write about, say, contracts.

Moot court about a contract dispute! That would be terrific.

But, it won't happen. And I suppose they have a point. If you're going to have a fake baseball game, do you pretend you're on a minor-league team in Chattanooga, TN or playing the All-Star game?

After reading the research materials this afternoon I realized that moot court is really Grueling Write-On Competition Part II. After that it took me about 5 seconds to email in my resignation.

09 Oct 05