Does mooting not simply reinforce black letter approaches to law?

One of the criticisms levelled at mooting is that it can reinforce the idea that black letter approaches are central to the study of law. Depending how a moot is being used this may be a fair criticism, but it need not be – there are ways of taking mooting outside the box.

The first point to note is that using a moot as a black letter vehicle will not necessarily always be bad. Even the most progressive law school will admit that black letter approaches are required for certain circumstances. It is important that students understand how law operates, and mooting can be an ideal vehicle for this, for example for helping students to understand issues surrounding stare decisis.

Although we have preconceived ideas as to how moots should operate there is no reason why these cannot be adapted as required. There are already exciting alternative ways of using moots outside black letter approaches. Within law some have used Shakespeare texts as the sources for a moot within a literature and the law course (Watt, 2006). Outside the law others are experimenting with the use of moot and mock courts as learning tools. Perhaps the most innovative example of this is the ‘On trial’ approach at The Arts Institute at Bournemouth, where students use a moot like activity to discuss the concepts of ethics in design (Hardie, 2007).

At the heart of mooting is a formula that governs the importance of sources. Within a traditional moot there is a hierarchy of sources, placing statutory material at the top of the scale and commentaries at the bottom – a moot can be used to demonstrate to students how this hierarchy works. It is possible to alter this formula, in the way used with Shakespeare – there is no reason why a tutor cannot decide to place alternative sources within this hierarchy and use them as part of the moot. Again, it could be argued that this is a good way of helping students to understand the development and use of sources.

Last Modified: 4 June 2010