Moot Court Semi Finals

There were 2 sessions of semi finals tonight. I wanted to go to both, but didn't want to leave my son home alone all evening (daughter was out with a friend). I convinced him to go with me, and told him we could leave after the first session if he didn't want to stay for the second. Of course, that's what we ended up doing. I would have loved to have stayed and watched the second, but I wanted to keep my word to him.

The judges at this round were much more harsh. Their critique afterwards were not directed at the individual participants, but were, for the most part, comments for all of them. They focused on some things not really mentioned in last night's prior rounds. I took notes, both from what I recall from the first sessions, and what was said tonight. I feel like I picked up a lot of good hints, ideas, and strategies. I won't be sharing them here, as some of those I will be competing with next year read this blog, and since I was one of those who took the time to be there, I don't feel it is necessary to share that with those who didn't.

But I can say that I see why many students do not want to go on in this competition. It only gets worse. The judges tonight admitted that the students would not face anyone harder than them. Since the grading from the first night was rather generous, in my opinion, what is the point of subjecting yourself to this kind of grilling unless you actually like that sort of thing? I don't know how many brownie points it earns you for the class if you get to a further round. It would have to be something major to make me want that.

I'm going to attend the finals tomorrow night. I would like to see what a "winning performance" looks like, and don't want to miss out on any other bits of advice the judges throw out.