sorrowmonkey

So tonight for Legal Skills, I had my first oral argument. I was representing the Plaintiff, and one of the other students was representing the defendant. The defendant went first, then I had to go, and then he rebutted.

He did pretty well, although the judges beat him up with questions pretty early on. I did well, I think, (they said I was "persuasive" YEAH!), but I said a few truly idiotic things along the way. I kept control pretty well, and the hands got going a bit, but I don't think too many "uh..."s slipped through. Still, I'm pretty exhausted from the whole experience.

I probably won't have any oral argument for a long time, but it was a good experience. I just wish I had done the prep for it before I wrote the brief. All of my notes for the oral argument would have made writing the brief much easier.

I was so terrified of the judges questions, that I really only prepped for that part. I didn't prep for the actual argument section nearly well enough, so when the judges went cold-bench on me, I floundered around. It was a damn shame that the defendant didn't bring up his favorite case from his memo, I was prepared to nuke him with it. Ah well.