Blackstone School of Law

Preparing 21st Century Lawyers through Student-Centered Education

5 Ahmed Block, Garden Town, Lahore, Pakistan

OFFICIAL RULES FOR BSOL X CSJ NATIONAL MOOT

COURT COMPETITION 2023
 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 4
MEMORIALS 4
GENERAL RULES 4
STYLE OF MEMORIALS 4
STRUCTURE OF MEMORIALS 5
FRONT PAGE 5
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 6
LIST OF AUTHORITIES 6
STATEMENT OF RELEVANT FACTS 6
QUESTIONS PRESENTED / ISSUES RAISED 6
ADVANCED ARGUMENTS 6
FOOTNOTES AND CITATIONS 6
FORMAT OF MEMORIALS 7
ANONYMITY OF MEMORIALS 7
JUDGING OF MEMORIALS 8
ORAL PLEADINGS 8
JUDGING ORAL ROUNDS 9
TIME ALLOCATION 9
COMPETITION FORMAT AND PROCEDURE 10
COMPETITION AWARDS 10
EX-PARTE PROCEEDINGS 11
MEMORIALS FOR JUDGES 11
 Blackstone School of Law
Preparing 21st Century Lawyers through Student-Centered Education
5 Ahmed Block, Garden Town, Lahore, Pakistan

1. DEFINITIONS

● “Competition” means the BSOL X CSJ National 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

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

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

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

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 Appellant 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
Appellant memorial.

● The name of the forum before which the proceedings are being conducted.
 Blackstone School of Law
Preparing 21st Century Lawyers through Student-Centered Education
5 Ahmed Block, Garden Town, Lahore, Pakistan

● The year of the Competition.

● Title of the case.

● Title of the memorial (either “Memorial for Appellant” 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.

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

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

● The deadline for submission of memorials is 12th December 2023 at 11:59 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
aadnan3@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 Appellant.
For instance, the Appellant memorial of a team with code 183 should be named
 Blackstone School of Law
Preparing 21st Century Lawyers through Student-Centered Education
5 Ahmed Block, Garden Town, Lahore, Pakistan

“183A”.

5.1. JUDGING OF MEMORIALS

Each memorial i.e. Appellant 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 15th to 17th December 2023.

The following order shall be followed in each oral round:

● Appellant speaker 1

● Appellant speaker 2

● Respondent speaker 1

● Respondent speaker 2

● Appellant’s rebuttal

● Respondent’s sur-rebuttal.
 Blackstone School of Law
Preparing 21st Century Lawyers through Student-Centered Education
5 Ahmed Block, Garden Town, Lahore, Pakistan

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.

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

7. COMPETITION FORMAT AND PROCEDURE

● The teams who submit their memorials on 12th December 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 Appellant 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’ (Appellant) Shield

● ‘Best Memorial’ (Respondent) Shield

● ‘Best Speaker’ Shield

 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 Appellant 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 AADNAN3@BSOLPK.ORG FOR ANY FURTHER QUERIES.