Law School - Factum

Life became too busy to get stuck on how I had not achieved what I had hoped in my exams and my memo. Our moots are coming up. We are told we will be writing a factum as the Appellants or Respondents and then doing the moot in front of a panel of “judges.” We are also told who our partner is and opposing counsel. They give us the trial decision, and what the appeal is going to be about. Self-defence. I had done my memo on the mens rea of the crime. Now I had to learn the law for self-defence before writing the factum. The professor seems to have a lot of faith in us saying that we have been thinking about the law since November. Well, I am not a very good law student, then, because I did my memo and then moved on to the other work I needed to do for classes. I didn’t try to figure out the law of self-defence back then.

At this point I think I have learned a lot, and there is a lot more I know now than I knew six months ago. But I definitely don’t feel as though I have mastered what the law is. It feels more like I have a basic understanding of it.

So, I have read the cases and think I have a fairly good grasp of them. I wrote my section of the memo, spent time with my partner doing some of the writing together, and managed to get the factum handed in. Although, I wish we had more time - like an extra day or two. Looking over it later I saw that it really could have used some more proofreading and editing. I made some really stupid errors. *sigh* Oh, well. Can’t change it now. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen to me when I have to hand in an actual factum to the court.

So now I am focusing on the oral argument. It is with some fear and trepidation that I approach Thursday, which is when my team moots.

On a side note, this semester I have been very grateful that I am not feeling so alone in this journey. Opportunities to talk with classmates and have discussions has really helped. I am not alone and am glad to know that.