The Moot Court Advisor's Handbook

Perhaps you are a law professor who has been asked to advise a moot court team. Maybe you teach an appellate advocacy course or run an internal moot court competition. You might be an attorney recruited to coach a team, or your school's entire moot court program might have just been dropped in your lap.

No matter your role or level of experience, the Legal Writing Institute's Moot Court Advisor's Handbook is a valuable resource of best practices for running moot court and other legal skills competitions. Drawing on the combined expertise of the Legal Writing Institute's Moot Court Committee, the handbook has chapters on administering a moot court program, running an internal moot court competition, coaching teams at external moot court competitions, and establishing your own external moot court competition. The second edition adds a new chapter on virtual competitions, updates regarding new ABA Standards relevant to legal skills competitions, and a trove of updated online resources you can customize to meet your program's needs.

This text is part of CAP's Law School Teaching list. Complimentary copies of these texts are not available, as they are intended for professional development and are not designed for student use. Please contact sarah@cap-press.com with any questions about our Law School Teaching titles.

The second edition of the Moot Court Advisor's Handbook​ retains all of the helpful work of the first edition but has added significant content to address many of the new realities we face.​ ABA standard changes? Check. Virtual competitions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic? Check.​ Generative AI assistance in writing briefs? Check. Like the first edition, ​i​t serves as a comprehensive game plan for organizing a law school moot court program, both for internal and external competitions. It also has sections that can be deployed strategically to help train volunteers, whether coaches or judges, and ensure quality in a moot court program. It's no surprise that this book was written by three legal writing professors with decades of experience. The chapters and subparts are thorough and skip no steps . . . . Professors Dimitri, Love Koenig, and Salmon have given moot court advisors and the moot court community a gift by gathering, organizing, and distilling the vast amount of learned wisdom about how to run a moot court program. This Handbook has earned its spot on the shelf of anyone involved in running a moot court program. It will continue to be an invaluable resource.
— Hilary Stirman Reed, Journal of Appellate Practice and Process