Blackstone School of Law

Preparing 21st Century Lawyers through Student-Centered Education

5 Ahmed Block, Garden Town, Lahore, Pakistan

OFFICIAL RULES FOR BLACKSTONE 3RD ANNUAL MOOT COURT

COMPETITION 2023

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 Blackstone School of Law
Preparing 21st Century Lawyers through Student-Centered Education
5 Ahmed Block, Garden Town, Lahore, Pakistan

TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEFINITIONS 3
TEAM COMPOSITION 3
MEMORIALS 4
GENERAL RULES 4
STYLE OF MEMORIALS 4
STRUCTURE OF MEMORIALS 4
FRONT PAGE 5
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 5
LIST OF AUTHORITIES 5
STATEMENT OF RELEVANT FACTS 6
QUESTIONS PRESENTED / ISSUES RAISED 6
ADVANCED ARGUMENTS 6
FOOTNOTES AND CITATIONS 6
FORMAT OF MEMORIALS 6
ANONYMITY OF MEMORIALS 6
JUDGING OF MEMORIALS 7
ORAL PLEADINGS 7
JUDGING ORAL ROUNDS 8
TIME ALLOCATION 8
COMPETITION FORMAT AND PROCEDURE 9
COMPETITION AWARDS 9
EX-PARTE PROCEEDINGS 10
MEMORIALS FOR JUDGES 10

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 Blackstone School of Law
Preparing 21st Century Lawyers through Student-Centered Education
5 Ahmed Block, Garden Town, Lahore, Pakistan

1. DEFINITIONS

● “Competition” means the 3rd Blackstone Annual Moot Court Competition 2023.

● “Moot Problem” means the official hypothetical problem which has been drafted and
published for use in the Competition.

● “Memorial” means the written arguments submitted, on behalf of both the Applicant and
Respondent, according to the official rules of the Competition by each Team.

● “Oral Pleading” means a team member's individual presentation in an Oral Round

submitted orally in front of adjudicators on behalf of one of the parties against another
team representing the opposing party.

● “Oral Rounds” means “Preliminary Rounds”, “Quarter-Finals”, “Semi-Finals” and “Final

Round”.

● “Rules” means these Official Rules of the Competition and any applicable supplements
to these Rules published by the organizing committee.

● “Team Code” means the code assigned to each registered team by the organizing
committee.

● “Organizing Committee’’ means the members representing Blackstone mooting society or

any person appointed on behalf of Blackstone administration organization and conduct of
the Competition, by the said society.

2. ORGANISING COMMITTEE

2.1. Interpretation of Rules

The organizing committee will have the exclusive authority to interpret these rules in the interests
of fairness and equity. This entails deviation from these rules when necessary in order to uphold
fairness and equity.

3. TEAM COMPOSITION

A team can have three members. In each of the oral rounds two members of the team will be

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 Blackstone School of Law
Preparing 21st Century Lawyers through Student-Centered Education
5 Ahmed Block, Garden Town, Lahore, Pakistan

speakers. Different members of the team can be speakers in different oral rounds. However, to be
eligible for the award of Best Speaker, a participant must have argued, at least once, for the
Applicant and Respondent, during the preliminary rounds. The average score per argument will
be calculated and the award will be determined on that basis.

4. MEMORIALS

4.1. GENERAL RULES

Each participating team must prepare one Applicant memorial and one Respondent Memorial.
All memorials must be in English. The word limit of each memorial is 4300 words, which
includes the Statement of Jurisdiction, Statement of Facts, Issues Raised, Summary of
Arguments, Arguments Advanced/Pleadings and Prayer. This word count is exclusive of
footnotes. The memorial scores will contribute towards deciding the outcome of a match in the
preliminary rounds.

4.2. STYLE OF MEMORIALS

(a) The text of all parts of the Memorial (exceptions listed below) must be in Times New
Roman, size 12 font and 1.5 line spacing.

i. The Front Page may be in any font size or style.

ii. Headings and sub-headings throughout the Memorials may be in a different font size,
underlined and/ or highlighted.

iii. Footnotes must be single-spaced, Times New Roman, size 10 font with a 12 pt space
between separate footnotes.

4.3. STRUCTURE OF MEMORIALS

Each Memorial shall contain the following sections in the following order:

A. Front Page

B. Table of Contents

C. List of Abbreviations

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 Blackstone School of Law
Preparing 21st Century Lawyers through Student-Centered Education
5 Ahmed Block, Garden Town, Lahore, Pakistan

D. List of Authorities

E. Statement of Relevant Facts

F. Statement of Jurisdiction

G. Questions Presented/ Issues Raised

H. Summary of Pleadings

I. Advanced Pleadings

J. Prayer/ Relief

4.3.1. FRONT PAGE

The Front Page of each memorial must contain only the following information:

● The team registration code in the upper right-hand corner, followed by a “A” for the
Applicant Memorial, or a “R” for the Respondent memorial. For example, Team 102
would put the code “102A” on the upper right-hand corner of its Applicant memorial.

● The name of the forum before which the proceedings are being conducted.

● The year of the Competition.

● Title of the case.

● Title of the memorial (either “Memorial for Applicant” or “Memorial for Respondent”).

4.3.2. LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

All abbreviations used in the memorial must be included in the List of Abbreviations.

4.3.3. LIST OF AUTHORITIES

The List of Authorities must list all the authorities cited in the memorial.

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 Blackstone School of Law
Preparing 21st Century Lawyers through Student-Centered Education
5 Ahmed Block, Garden Town, Lahore, Pakistan

4.3.4. STATEMENT OF RELEVANT FACTS

The Statement of Facts must contain a concise statement of the relevant facts of the dispute.

4.3.5. QUESTIONS PRESENTED / ISSUES RAISED

Teams should present the legal questions the Court is being called upon to decide in the context
of the case. They must be presented as neutral questions, i.e. teams should not state their position
on the questions raised in this section.

4.3.6. ADVANCED ARGUMENTS

Substantive, affirmative legal argument or legal interpretation of the facts of the Case may only
be presented in the ‘Advanced Arguments’ section of the Memorial.

4.3.7. FOOTNOTES AND CITATIONS

Teams must not provide any information in the footnote that is not related to the identification
of an authority or source. Footnotes may not include additional legal arguments. Teams must not
use endnotes. There must be a consistent format of citations.

4.4. FORMAT OF MEMORIALS

a) Memorials must be written in Microsoft Word and saved with the corresponding .doc or .docx
file extension.

b) Each memorial should be electronically submitted in two formats: (i) as a Microsoft Word
document with the aforementioned file extension and (ii) in PDF format.

4.5. ANONYMITY OF MEMORIALS

Teams must not reveal the name of their institution, or names of their participants, anywhere in
the memorials or in the course of the oral arguments. Teams must also not make use of or display
in any manner whatsoever any logo, pins, badges etc. in the memorials or during the course of
the oral arguments provided that speakers may refer to themselves and other speakers in an oral
round by their respective names.

5. SUBMISSION OF MEMORIALS

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 Blackstone School of Law
Preparing 21st Century Lawyers through Student-Centered Education
5 Ahmed Block, Garden Town, Lahore, Pakistan

● The deadline for submission of memorials is 19th January 2023 at 23:59 pm.

● All teams shall send a soft copy of memorials for each side in both Microsoft Word and
PDF formats, via electronic mail, on or before the deadline provided to
blackstonemootingsociety@bsolpk.org.

● Any submission made after the mentioned deadline will be considered late submission
and there will be a deduction of 5 marks.

● Each Memorial should be contained in a single file with the name of the file being the
allocated team code followed by the first letter of the party whose arguments are
presented in that memorial, i.e., an R for Respondent and A for Applicant. For instance,
the Applicant memorial of a team with code 183 should be named “183A”.

5.1. JUDGING OF MEMORIALS

Each memorial i.e. Applicant and Respondent will be marked on a maximum of 100 (one
hundred) marks on the basis of the following criteria:

● Application of facts

● Recognition of issues

● Identification of legal principles

● Quality and extent of research

● Overall impression, logical structure and clarity of thought

● Formatting and citations

6. ORAL PLEADINGS

Oral pleadings shall take place from 20th to 22nd January 2023.

The following order shall be followed in each oral round:

● Applicant speaker 1

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 Blackstone School of Law
Preparing 21st Century Lawyers through Student-Centered Education
5 Ahmed Block, Garden Town, Lahore, Pakistan

● Applicant speaker 2

● Respondent speaker 1

● Respondent speaker 2

● Applicant’s rebuttal

● Respondent’s sur-rebuttal.

The oral pleadings shall be in English only. There will be no deviation from this language
requirement.

6.1. JUDGING ORAL ROUNDS

Each oral pleading shall be marked from a total of 100 marks by each judge of the panel in every
round based on the following criteria:

● Correct legal analysis

● Correct application of law to the facts

● Use of legal sources

● Clarity and logic of arguments

● Response to the questions posed by judges

● Rebuttal or sur-rebuttal

● Persuasiveness and fluency of arguments

● Overall presentation

6.2. TIME ALLOCATION

● Each team’s Oral Pleadings cannot exceed 25 minutes, including the time for answering
questions from judges and rebuttals or sur-rebuttals.

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 Blackstone School of Law
Preparing 21st Century Lawyers through Student-Centered Education
5 Ahmed Block, Garden Town, Lahore, Pakistan

● The time allocation is the discretion of teams, and they must inform the bailiff before the
round starts.

● The minimum time for each speaker should not be less than 10 minutes and the maximum
time should not be more than 15 minutes.

● The judges, at their discretion, can extend the time for each speaker on request.

7. COMPETITION FORMAT AND PROCEDURE

● The teams who submit their memorials on 19th January 2023 (not later than 23:59 pm)
will be eligible to compete in the Oral Rounds.

● The Competition shall consist of Preliminary Rounds, Quarter-Final Rounds, Semi-Final

Rounds and Final Round.

● Each team shall compete once as the Applicant and once as the Respondent in the
Preliminary Rounds.

● On the basis of the memorial scores and preliminary round scores, the teams will qualify
for the Quarter-Final Rounds (8 teams).

● The top 4 teams will then compete in the Semi-Final Rounds.

● The top 2 teams will compete in the Final Rounds.

8. COMPETITION AWARDS

The following prizes will be awarded:

● ‘Winning’ Shield

● ‘Runner-up’ Shield

● ‘Best Memorial’ (Applicant) Shield

● ‘Best Memorial’ (Respondent) Shield

● ‘Best Speaker’ Shield

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 Blackstone School of Law
Preparing 21st Century Lawyers through Student-Centered Education
5 Ahmed Block, Garden Town, Lahore, Pakistan

9. EX-PARTE PROCEEDINGS

The competition will proceed on an ex parte basis at the expiration of 15 minutes, the
organization may decide to delay the start of proceedings or reschedule the session in exceptional
circumstances.

10. MEMORIALS FOR JUDGES

Teams should bring four copies of their memorials along with them (4 Applicant and 4
Respondent) that must be submitted to the Organizing Committee. Please note that on-spot
printing facilities won’t be available at the venue.

EMAIL BLACKSTONEMOOTINGSOCIETY@BSOLPK.ORG FOR ANY

FURTHER QUERIES.

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