Developed to help students with brief writing and oral advocacy for the Supreme Court of the United States moot court problems. This presentation is intended for educational use and should not be relied on in any way for legal practice and/or advice.

1. Moot Court: Timeline with
Select Resources*
*Developed to help students with brief writing and oral advocacy for the Supreme Court of the United States moot court problems

2. Reviewing the Moot
Court Problem
Review the Record
• Identify key issues and facts
that were preserved in the
record
• Gain familiarity in that area
of law (e.g., consult a
treatise on the subject)
• Read and know key cases
that pertain to the issue(s)
that are appealable. Many
of these cases will be cited
in the lower court
decisions.
• Resources: Moot Court
Packet; Legal Treatises --
consult the Treatise Finder
Libguide; and Legal
Databases (Westlaw,
LexisNexis, Bloomberg)
Gain a General Understanding
of the Supreme Court
Appellate Procedure
• SCOTUSBLOG.com has a
great general overview of
the Supreme Court
Procedure
Tackling the Brief Research for the
Brief
Oral Arguments
Brief Writing Resources
• Research the Rules of the
Supreme Court of the United
States for briefing requirements.
Great Resources include:
• Supreme Court Practice
(9th ed. 2007). KF8742
.St45 2007/ 10th fl.
• Sources for crafting persuasive
and effective arguments:
• Ruggero J. Aldisert,
• Winning on Appeal:
Better Briefs and Oral
Arguments (2nd ed.
2003)
• Check out party briefs through
SCOTUSblog’s Merit Cases Page.
• Library Guides for Moot Court
Competitions:
- Boston College’s Moot Court
Research Help (Link)
- Rutgers Law Library Moot Court
Research Guides (Link)
Researching the Law
• Are you researching a federal
or state legal issue (e.g.,
diversity jurisdiction)?
• Researching the law:
- Is there a Libguide
on that area of law?
- For constitutional
issues, check out
Georgetown Law
Library’s Constitutional
Law & History Research
Guide (Link)
• Finding Case Law or statutory
information:
- Did you review the topic
in AMJUR 2d?
- Did you review the
corresponding legal key
in West’s Federal Practice
Digest (Catalog Records)
AND/OR did you
perform a key search on
Westlaw?
- For Statutory issues, did you
consult an annotated
United States Code
(U.S.C.A. or U.S.C.S)?
Oral Argument Guidance
• Bryan A. Garner,
T The Winning Oral
• A Argument (2009).
KF 8870.G37 2009
/ 6th fl.
William K. Suter,
Guide for Counsel
in Cases Appearing
to be Argued before
the Supreme Court
of the United States
(2012) (Link)
Alan L. Dworsky,
The Little Book on
Oral Argument(1991).
KF 8870 .D89 1991 /
6th fl.
You can go the
SCOTUS’s Argument
Audio Page to
listen to SCOTUS oral
arguments (Link)