Mooting (and its futility?)

This may be a late response, but it is more than a response. I just use her post a starting point.

The temptation to write an angsty post about the futility of mooting is almost impossible to resist.

Almost.

Pssssst. It's futile. Completely. Don't whore your soul to inevitable ignominy.

Most times, how random things get, are funny, maybe even surprising. It is when one is at the receiving end of the brunt of the randomness, that how distressing it actually is, seems to hit one. Well, I am no judge of a moot court or the rankings, but in my eyes, the entire system followed in the University Selections (for that is ALL the experience in a moot court I have) seems absolutely random. 

I am not a stranger to this absolutely random arbitrariness. When in a college where the teachers have autonomy, it is normal to see such random results almost never commensurate with merit. It was slightly unnerving at first, but ince it always seemed to affect me positively, I chose to ignore it. 

Apart from my subjective opinion that people who were more deserving and most definitely better (myself not included) ended below those who didn't or weren't, I feel there are certain empirical reasons to believe that my mooting experience has been totally random. Three rounds of moots and not one bit of similarity between them. After 2 memorials and 6 judges (well 600 marks of orals, at any rate), it seems odd that the ranks ended up being determined by one judge, whose range of marking (3 to 70 odd) skewed all ranks. Well, the point of this post is not to crib. It is quite the opposite, actually.

I feel, as must be apparent already, that I deserved to do better than I actually did. I ended up somewhere near half, when my memorial marks alone would have placed me in the Top 10. My second round oral marls, total of three judges (out of 300) was less than my memo score (out of 100). But even after all this, I dont believe mooting is futile. I feel I learnt so much more from these 3 weeks than I had learnt in my entire law school life till date. Mooting helps in more ways than one. It helps you learn procedure. It helps you learn to research (quickly and accurately). It helps you focus. It helps you think. It helps you in myriad ways. 

What I am essentially trying to say is that apart from the slime, the randomness, the absolute disappointment etc etc, I still came out wealthier than I went in. What I regret is not doing this in my Second Year. I plan, as of now, to carry this on to my 5th. I may never make the top 5 due to the randomness, or because I'm just not good enough. But that is NOT the only reason I wish to moot. The entire process.

The process of spending one week thinking of nothing but the problem. Doing research. Every little argument is a victory. The satisfaction of looking at a finished memorial printed a few hours early to check objective errors. The euphoria of looking at the memo pass from your hands and into the hands of the MCS member, just in time, after running from Swathi. The process of looking to defend and make your arguments in absolute unpredictable randomness. The entire process makes mooting absolutely worth it. I would much rather write a dozen memos in a week than write a project, although even one of the former is more work than one of the latter.

At the end of all of this, the randomness seems so minor. The results are insignificant. It is the process that is meant to be enjoyed, and enjoyable it definitely is. After all, how much less (rather more) random, are actual Courts?