Althouse: Watch Justice Scalia do a moot court competition.

January 26, 2009

Watch Justice Scalia do a moot court competition.

Video here. (Via Orin Kerr.)

11 comments:

Simon said...: I watched that on Saturday, and it reconfirmed to me that we shouldn't televise the court. It's nice to watch - fun. But people who aren't immersed in this stuff just don't understand the role of argument, and its place in the process; televising it is fun, but what happens is that you give the lay audience a misleading impression. They see three judges battering these advocates with questions, and they do not realize that there is very limited time, that there has already been a blizzard of paper in terms of briefs and opinions below, and that if counsel starts off down an unproductive road, it is a horrible mistake to let him or her get too far down it. If every member of the panel knows that every other member of the panel thinks that point one in the brief is a dead end, but there's some serious issues to get to in point three, it would be ridiculous to let counsel waste half of his time on an issue that is already (and unbeknownst to her) settled.; 1/26/09, 6:38 PM
David said...: I already did, when he was a professor of mine in law school. He is one very smart dude He was also very funny and quite pro-union. The other issues that now make him such a beast to liberals were largely unthought of in the late 1960's.; 1/26/09, 6:39 PM
Host with the Most said...: I already did, too, several years ago at Chapman University in Orange, CA. He was quite funny.

Everything Simon says above is spot on. And I'm not an attorney like the 2 commenters above.; 1/26/09, 7:20 PM
Simon said...: Host, I must clarify - I'm not an attorney. Thanks, though. :); 1/26/09, 8:19 PM
Anonymous said...: Nothing worse than over-projecting law students.

Rex Lee shows us how it should be done, and the Justices let him talk because (by the time of Amos) they know he'll lay it all out for them.; 1/26/09, 10:01 PM
Mark Daniels said...: Actually, Scalia, brilliant though he undeniably is, would be better in a mute court rather than a moot court.

Even when a person agrees with him, Scalia is annoying, the guy who always has a point. He could learn a thing or two from David Bowie.

Gratuitously, but not entirely off-topic.; 1/26/09, 11:51 PM
Host with the Most said...: Host, I must clarify - I'm not an attorney. Thanks, though. :)

How do you reason so well on legal matters? Did you do Law School?; 1/27/09, 12:26 AM
Mortimer Brezny said...: The problem with oral argument is that although that sounds like a description of forcible rape, it isn't.; 1/27/09, 6:21 AM
Anonymous said...: Another law post with single digit comments.

Hm.; 1/27/09, 7:43 AM
J. Cricket said...: Kinda like the readership for Althouse's scholarship. Well, back when she produced some.; 1/27/09, 8:59 AM
Simon said...: Host, I think that there are many who would question your premise. ;)

HelenParr said...
"Another law post with single digit comments."

Pearson was an interesting case, but I didn't feel that I had anything worthwhile to say about it, and nothing in Ann's post or the comments provoked me. I suppose that's the case for others, too.; 1/27/09, 12:44 PM