1. WITNESS EXAMINATION INFORMATION SESSION

2. 2017 Witness Officer Details
Foley’s List First Year Witness Examination
Victorian Bar Open Witness Examination
Andrew Jin & Alex Anthony
Ruben Clark & Elif Sekercioglu

3. General Information What is witness exam? What do you get out of it?
The most fun competition!
What you see on TV (more or less)
Two team members, one acts as witness, one as barrister (you can swap this around)
No research necessary…   
What do you get out of it?
Improve your advocacy and acting skills
Public speaking practice in a mock court situation
The chance to wear a suit around uni
Fun times with friends while tearing apart the other witness as you channel your favourite barrister
I might be biased but I think it’s fair to say that witness exam is the best competition! You get to pair up with a mate and one person acts as the witness (and when I say acts, I really mean they get to act if they want), and the other person acts as the barrister. The barrister will present an opening where they essentially tell the jury (in this case will just be a judge) a story about the facts. They then do an examination in chief of their own witness, where they get their witness to give their evidence of what they saw. They will also do a cross-examination of the opposing side’s witness. This is where they try to back the witness into a corner and get them agreeing with what they want to say happened. Once each witness has been questioned both barristers make a closing argument where they argue why, based on the evidence before the court, the jury or judge should find the prosecution guilty or not guilty.
No doubt you’ve all seen plenty of tv shows where the very clever barrister outsmarts the witness into confessing his or her guilt. While it rarely happens exactly like that in real life, as you’ll see from Elif, Ruben and Jacob’s demo it’s pretty similar.
There is a bit of preparation involved in witness exam. You have to read the witness statements, work out what you think happened and then work out how you’re going to use the evidence from the witnesses to prove that the prosecution or defence should win (depending on which side you’re on). Then you need to write your closing, cross-examination, examination in chief and opening. Then hopefully practice that with your witness. The witness needs to learn the facts and brush up on their acting skills. But what’s really great about witness exam is that there’s no research necessary. All the info you should need will be in the problem and witness statements, and the guidebook. You do need to put at least a couple of hours into prep (and I’d advise putting a bit more time in than that if you want to do really well), but there’s no stress about having to spend hours on CaseBase and Firstpoint frantically learning a new area of law (not that that isn’t also a valuable thing to do too). So it’s less prep than mooting and I think also less stressful.
And whether or not you think you might one day want to go to the bar or be a litigator, the skills that you gain from practising dealing with a difficult and unpredictable witness will be invaluable in just about any career in the law. You’ll also learn some basics of evidence law, which will be helpful later in your JD and career.
Added bonus is you get to wear business attire so if you want you can walk around uni in your suit, looking all professional. So there’s plenty of reason why you should be keen to sign up 

4. Schedule
First Year Witness
Open Witness
Wednesday or Thursday
Monday or Tuesday
6:30pm or 7:30 pm
6:30 pm or 7:30 pm
All dates can be found on the MULSS website under FY Witness and Open Witness respectively
Teams will have the option of choosing their preferred day subject to availability
No choice of time
It is important that you are able to attend all the registered days lest it be unfair your opponents that round

5. Process Problem released 48 hrs prior to when you start speaking
Read over the two statements
Witness: Memorise facts and practise exam in chief with barrister
Barrister: Prepare your case theory and consider what questions you might ask in cross exam
Case theory- how you’ll portray your version of events through opening, exam in chief and closing

6. Registration Only one team member is required to register Have ready:
FIRST YEAR WITNESS
OPEN WITNESS
Registration opens
Wednesday March 1st
6:30pm
Friday March 3rd
Who can register
First Years only
Melbourne JD students
Register at  
Only one team member is required to register
Have ready:
Team Name
Student number of both competitors
address of both competitors
Mobile Number of both competitors
Preferred Night
Registration link will be on the MULSS website and there will be a post on the event page directing you to the site

7. Demonstration Witness Examination
Ft. Ruben Clark, Elif Sekercioglu and Jacob Rodrigo

8. Q & A

9. Thank You For Coming Registration: Skills Session with Andrew Palmer
Tonight for FY Witness
Friday March 3rd for Open Witness
Skills Session with Andrew Palmer
Wednesday March 15th 1-2pm
Negotiations Info Session
Thursday March 2nd1pm, G08
Client Interview Info Session
Thursday March 9th1pm, G08