Studying laws, rules and case laws for Moot Problems

Before you buy a phone you check the price on two sites, read a few reviews, and ignore the review that says it is the worst phone ever made because it arrived late. Legal research asks for the same habits, with higher stakes: a judge will ask whether your case is still good law, and saying you found it on a blog is not an answer. A moot problem hands you issues; this topic is about finding authority that answers them and being sure it says what you claim.

In two minutes

Moot research goes from the binding to the persuasive: start with the Constitution and the Act itself, then rules and delegated legislation, then binding case law (Supreme Court decisions bind all courts under Article 141), then persuasive authority; read each authority fully, extract its ratio, and check that it is still good law before citing it.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Practical Training – III: Moot Court Exercise and Internship on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.