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Supreme Court
Metro Manila
As resolved by the Court, the following advisory shall govern the submission
of legal memoranda on May 25, 2017 and the oral arguments scheduled for June 10,
2017:
I. Objectives
The 4th ALS LegTech Moot Court Exercise (the “Moot Court”) aims to simulate
oral argumentation before the Supreme Court where teams are presented with a
hypothetical problem and assigned a side (either petitioner, respondent, or amicus
curiae) for which they must argue convincingly based on facts and Philippine law and
jurisprudence. Each team is required to submit a written memorandum which
contains the arguments for its case, and to be able to orally plead before the moot
court.
The Moot Court aims to provide an appropriate forum for the development of
high-grade advocacy skills for freshmen ALS students through oral and written
pleading and argumentation. It likewise aims to promote awareness of legal or
constitutional problems vis-a-vis policy and social justice issues; to develop insight
and perspective on the process of the administration of justice towards its
enhancement; and to promote closer relations among the students for increased
consciousness of their social responsibility as men and women and lawyers for others.
The Moot Court consists of two aspects: written pleadings and oral pleadings.
This year’s Moot Court problem pertains to current issues relating to online
trolling and cyberbullying in response to expressions of opinions on political issues
and current events. This phenomenon is testing the limits of free speech and internet
regulation.
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instances, students are not allowed to distort the facts, to make misrepresentations,
or to make inferences that are not supported by the problem.
IV. Submissions
(1)A statement of issues due on Saturday, May 13, 2017 at 9 a.m. (to be
submitted during class)
(2)An outline of arguments due on Thursday, May 25, 2017 by 5:00 p.m.; and
(3)Full-length legal memorandum for the side selected due on Thursday, May
25, 2017 by 5:00 p.m.
These submissions are to be given to Mr. Roy Madamba at the Dean’s Office as
indicated above.
V. Team Identification
Names of the students should not appear on or within any of the submissions.
The teams are reminded that issues of policy are beyond the jurisdiction of the
Court.
A. Formal Requirements
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Each team is required to submit a written memorandum for their side (either
petitioner, respondent, or amicus curiae). The Memorandum shall be prepared in
English.
(1) Format
The text of the memorandum must be typed in single space using Times New
Roman 12-size font, on Philippine legal size (8.5” x 13”) white bond paper. A one-and-
a-half space must be observed between headings and the text of the memorandum
and between paragraphs.
The text of footnotes must be typed in single space in Times New Roman 10-
size font. A one-and-a-half space must be observed between separate footnotes.
(2) Length
The Body of the Memorandum (written pleadings) shall not exceed fifteen (15)
pages, inclusive of footnotes. This page count does not include the Table of Contents,
Statement of Facts, Statement of Issues, and Outline of Arguments.
The citation format of the Ateneo Law Journal Citation Guide shall be used in
citations and footnotes.
Footnotes are to be used to cite authority only. Footnotes may not include
substantive pleadings or examples, except for those situations where the body of the
Memorandum states a rule and the footnote indicates where that rule is, followed by
citation to the authority. A footnote may only support material that is already stated
and analyzed in the body of the memorandum. Footnotes are included in the page
limit rule as stated above.
Authorities relied upon shall be cited by the page of the report at which the
case begins and the page of the report on which the citation is found.
Quotations of fifty (50) words or more shall be block-quoted (i.e., right and left
indented) and may be single-spaced. Such block quotes are discouraged, however.
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Each page of the Memorandum (regardless of content) shall have margins of
an average of at least one (1) inch or 2.6 centimeters on all sides, excluding page
numbers.
Each page of the Memorandum must indicate the corresponding page number.
(5) Covers
a) the team number and side on the upper right hand corner (e.g., 1P,
1R);
b) the name of this Court (i.e., Supreme Court);
c) the year of the Moot Court exercise (i.e., 2017);
d) the name of the case; and
e) the title of the document (i.e., “Memorandum for Respondent,”
“Memorandum for Petitioner,” or “Memorandum for Amicus
Curiae”).
(6) Binding
Each Memorandum must be fastened by two or three staples along the left side
of the Memorandum. No other type of fastening device (such as ring binding or tape)
is allowed.
Each team must submit five (5) copies of its Memorandum in hard copy, and
an electronic copy via email. The memorandum must be in Microsoft Word format.
The memorandum submitted via email must be identical to the hard copy of the
memorandum submitted. Once submitted, memorandums may not be altered. The
deadline for submission of the electronic copy of the memorandum shall be the same
as the deadline for submission of the hard copy.
B. Substantive Requirements
The Memorandum shall consist of the following parts in the order stated
below:
a) Table of Contents;
b) Statement of Facts;
c) Statement of Issues;
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d) Outline of Arguments;
e) Body of the Memorandum (written pleadings) with argumentative
headings; and
f) Conclusion / Prayer for Relief.
a) Table of Contents
Each memorandum shall contain a Table of Contents which lists the contents
of the entire memorandum and their respective page numbers.
b) Statement of Facts
c) Statement of Issues
Each memorandum shall contain a clear and concise statement of the issues of
law to be submitted to the court for its judgment. The issues must be stated using the
Garner “deep issue” method, without repetition, and numbered consecutively.
d) Outline of Arguments
The body of the memorandum shall contain the discussion of the team’s
arguments on each issue of law presented, with page and paragraph references to the
competition problem. Each section in the memorandum is to be signposted with the
appropriate argumentative heading, which is to be based on the outline of arguments.
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IX. Oral Pleadings
A. General Procedure
All members of the team shall orally plead their case before the Court. The
order of the pleadings shall be:
Each team will be given a cumulative total of forty-five (45) minutes to plead
its entire case. Each oralist should plead for not less than ten (10) minutes, but not
more than fifteen (15) minutes.
The oralists may bring their notes but are not allowed to read their
presentations.
The Court may decide to extend the time for the presentation of the oralist, but
in no case shall it be for more than one (1) minute for each oralist.
Each team shall be allowed to reserve up to three (3) minutes for rebuttal or
sur-rebuttal. Team members shall notify the courtroom bailiff prior to the start of the
Round if they intend to reserve time for this purpose, and should announce this fact
to the judges during their introductions at the beginning of the oral pleadings during
the Round. Only one team member may deliver the rebuttal or sur-rebuttal.
The team members are strongly advised to keep a close watch on the time and
to manage their time wisely.
C. Scope of Pleadings
The scope of the team’s oral pleadings shall be limited to the scope of the
team’s submitted Memorandum.
Legal issues not addressed in the primary pleadings may not be raised in the
Rebuttal or Sur-rebuttal.
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D. Competition Communications
Only the judges and the oralists may communicate during the oral pleadings.
There shall be no oral communication between the counsel table and any other
individual during the round.
Written communication may only take place at the counsel table itself.
No written communication may take place between the oralist and the counsel
table or with spectators while the Round is in progress.
X. Penalties
A. In General
The Court may impose penalties upon any team if it finds that it has violated
the rules and regulations regarding its conduct in the course of the oral pleadings or
as to the Memorandum, on a written complaint or on the Court's own motion.
Complaints as to oral pleadings shall be submitted immediately to the Court after such
pleadings and before it announces its decision.
B. Mandatory Penalties
The following penalty points shall be imposed as deduction from the team's
performance by the Court upon determination of the pertinent facts constituting a
breach of the corresponding rules, thus:
Breach of Rule Penalty Points
(1) Memorandum
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(b) Excessive length of Memorandum 2 points per excess
page
C. Discretionary Penalties
The Court may impose a penalty of three points per violation for breach of any
other rule, including unethical behavior.
XI. Judging
A team is not given a choice as to which side of the case it must plead. Hence,
scoring or judging is to be based not so much on the conclusive merits of the case as
on the advocacy skills and legal analysis on the part of the participants.
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(6)Persuasiveness;
(7)Quality of response to questions; and
(8)Deference to the Court.
Scoring is to be done on the basis of team effort and not individual merit. The
guiding scoring principle is “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”