Swiss Moot Court

Prupose and Target Group

The Swiss Moot Court is a competition for students enrolled at a Swiss Law Faculty who do not yet hold a Master's degree. It offers the opportunity to practically apply knowledge and skills that have been acquired in class and to deepen your understanding of an issue regarding Swiss legislation. The competition is also an opportunity to network with people in this field by establishing new contacts with law experts and lawyers.

Procedure

Students of various Swiss Law Faculties compete in a fictitious trial. In the written round, the teams (consisting of 2-4 students) draft an appeal as well as a response to the appeal based on a specific case. The 12 best teams qualify for the oral round at the Federal Surpreme Court in Lucerne, where they have the chance to practice their pleading skills in front of a jury. The jury consists of federal judges, lawyers and law professors, who assess the validity of the speakers' arguments, their persuasiveness and their rhetoric. The two best teams compete against each other in the finale.

Time frame

The specific case is published on the website of the Swiss Moot Court at the end of September and students have six weeks to work on the case. Teams that qualify for the oral round are announced the following January. The oral round takes palce in mid-February.

The Pre-Moot of the University of Bern takes place on 30 January 2020 at the Pestalozzi law firm in Zurich.

Receiving credit

For Bachelor students, the Swiss Moot Court can be credited with 5 ECTS as a written case solution in Private Law. Afterwards, the students may decide themselves if they also want to take part in the oral performance. Therefor, an internal, oral phase called "Pre-Moot" will be launched. The participation in this will be credited as a seminar (additonally 5 ECTS). The Swiss Moot Court can be credited as a seminar regardless of whether or not the team qualified for the oral round at the Federal Surpreme Court in Lucerne. In summary, Bachelor students may choose whether they want to be credited by 5 ECTS for the written phase (mandatory) oder by 10 ECTS including the oral phase (voluntary).

For Master students, the Swiss Moot Court can be credited with 10 ECTS as a seminar. Therefor, the students are obliged to take part in the written phase and the oral Pre-Moot. The Swiss Moot Court can be credited as a seminar regardless of whether or not the team qualified for the oral round at the Federal Surpreme Court in Lucerne.

Registration

philip.lengacher@ziv.unibe.ch (please provide your matriculation number and which semester you are currently in)

(Internal) registrations/pre-registrations will be accepted from August 25, 2022; in case of a large number of registrations, the order of receipt will be taken into account and/or, if necessary, it will be proposed to form teams of 4.