Comments | mock_trial: (без темы)

madradio921 in mock_trial

(Untitled)

Jan 02, 2006 17:37

Hey

I was just wondering if anyone had some good tips for the closing arguement. I'm from Wisconsin (here's the link to our case) and I'm just looking for some general tips.

If you want to get specific though, i'm doing the closing for the petitioner's side. this is my second year as a lawyer, but my first having to make a closing statement.

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Comments 2

chewie13 January 3 2006, 03:31:07 UTC

Firstly, you need a theme, basically summing everything up into one nice sentence, like "People are responsible for their actions" (good for pretty much every case ever).

I dunno if they give you briefs in your case books, but if they do, you basically want to make sure you cover all the points that they do. And make sure you have case law that you're allowed to use in your closing. Ohio's fucked up this year, and they mention about 12 cases in the briefs that we're not allowed to use. One of the teams we went up against last year didn't use ANY case law, and the judges ripped them to shreads.

Um...memorize it, or at least know it really well. That's all I can think of for now. Ask your advisor to read through it - to make sure you use active voice not passive, things like that.

Good luck!

eugeneoregon January 7 2006, 09:10:56 UTC

Just start out your trial with a wish list of things that you really hope will be said by witnesses and see what you can do with them. Also, don't be afraid to leave some questions a bit open-ended with witnesses on the stand and then use your closing argument to explain their ultimate relevance.

As for what the person above said, I don't know what they mean by memorize, but I think they're amazingly wrong to say "ask someone to read through it" because you shouldn't have one written out, you should base it on what was actually said at trial, not your wish list. You want to make sure to have an outline -- things that you wanted them to say -- that you can check off and make those points in your closing if they're made, but you're better off if it looks like you're really making the argument off the cuff, not from a prepared oratory.