Moot court
A moot court puts the grounds you kept in front of an AI bench, opposing counsel, or both, and makes you argue them out loud before you do it for real. It ends in a scorecard saying which arguments held, which faltered, and which authorities you never reached for.
A moot never rewrites the report. The setup pane says so, and the scorecard says it again. The one thing it can change is your triage, and only when you ask it to.
Getting in
Two ways in, and they land in the same place.
- Moot court in the report header. It is available once the report has settled, and withheld on a run that stopped before it finished.
- Moot this ground in a ground's detail view. See Reviewing grounds.
Either opens the setup pane over the document. Once a session is attached, a Strategy / Moot court switch appears in the header with a live clock beside it, and the Moot court button steps aside. The switch is a mode, not a route: flipping to Strategy leaves the session running, and flipping back drops you exactly where you were. While you are on the strategy side, a red banner reads Moot court is still running, with the turn number and the elapsed time, and a Return to the moot button.
The Files panel hides itself for the length of a session, so the courtroom gets the width.
The setup pane
The pane is headed Moot court, Argue it before you argue it. Under it, a line telling you what you are about to face: the grounds you kept, and the promise that they stay on the right the whole time so you can cite from them as you would from a brief. If you have kept nothing, it says so plainly and tells you the moot will run over every ground in the report instead.
Three tiles follow: grounds in play, authorities to hand and grounds you dropped.
If you have mooted this report before, an Earlier sessions list sits under the tiles: the mode, the number of turns, and whether it is Ended or In progress. Selecting one resumes it. A session is charged when it starts, so resuming an abandoned one costs nothing extra.
Choosing a bench
The footer of the setup pane asks one question, Question 1 of 1, marked Pick one: What kind of bench do you want?
| Option | What it is |
|---|---|
| Opposing counsel | Spar with the other side: they attack your grounds, you answer with your authorities. |
| Bench grilling | Face the judge alone: rapid-fire questions on your weakest points, interjections included. |
| Full moot | The complete courtroom: opposing counsel argues, the bench interjects, you close. |
Start the session begins. Cancel leaves moot mode without starting anything. Beside them, a readout reads 10 credits · ~20 turns · charged at start, and at the right of the row a reminder that the report is never changed by a moot.
The courtroom
The status strip
| Part | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Mode | Opposing counsel, Bench grilling or Full moot. |
| Court chip | The court the report was written for. |
| Turn counter | turn n of ~20. The cap is a soft one on the session, not a hard stop mid-sentence. |
| Clock | Elapsed time, in minutes and seconds. |
| Stop reply | Stops the reply currently being generated and discards it. Available only while something is in flight; it reads Stopping… while it works. Nothing resumes, so make your next submission when you are ready. |
The thread
The transcript sits in the middle. What you see before the first turn depends on the bench you picked.
- Bench grilling and Full moot open with the judge, so the thread reads The bench is taking its seat, with a note that the judge opens with a question on your matter, usually within twenty seconds.
- Opposing counsel does not open for you: the thread reads Opposing counsel is waiting. You open, and points you at the ground your report rates highest, with the verified authorities behind it.
The composer
The field reads Address the bench…, or Answer opposing counsel… in opposing-counsel mode. Four chips sit on its left rail and drop an opening into the field for you to finish.
| Chip | What it does |
|---|---|
| Cite authority… | Opens the citation picker over the composer, searchable by case name, citation or holding. Picking one drops the citation into your submission. |
| Concede point | Starts a concession. |
| Seek clarification | Starts a question to the bench. |
| Summarise position | Starts a summary of where you are. |
In Full moot a line under the composer says when the bench will next speak: opposing counsel replies next, and the bench comes in every third submission, or the bench comes in after your next submission.
The rail during a session
The grounds rail becomes your crib. It is headed Your grounds, with a count reading n of m cited and a line explaining what the list is: the grounds you kept, in running order, and that Cite drops the authority into your answer. With nothing kept it says the moot is arguing from all of them instead.
Each card shows the ground number, its strength badge, a cited badge once you have invoked it, its title, its authority count and a Cite button. Selecting the title opens that ground.
Two buttons sit at the foot:
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Session notes | Swaps the rail to the courtroom rail described below. |
| End session | Ends the session and builds the scorecard. It reads Ending… while it works. |
The courtroom rail
Session notes opens a two-tab rail. Grounds at its top-left returns you to the crib.
Cited · n is Every authority invoked before the bench so far, numbered in the order they were first cited, and marked Cited by you or Cited by opposing counsel. Below the invoked ones, two sections list what is still in reserve: For you: not yet invoked and Against you: not yet invoked. Every entry carries a control to cite it into your next submission.
Bench notes is What this session is telling you, as it happens, in three sections:
- Open questions from the bench, each marked Answered or Unanswered, with the turn it came from.
- Points conceded, each marked Conceded, with a note.
- Authorities invoked, with a tally for You and for Opposing counsel, then the list.
The scorecard
End session closes the courtroom and prepares the scorecard. The thread says so while it works.
The scorecard opens with the overall verdict and four counts: how many arguments held, how many faltered, how many authorities you missed, and how many bench questions went unresolved. A strip under them lists every argument with a Held or Faltered badge, held ones first, and the two are then broken out in full with the reason for each.
Authorities you missed lists the authorities the bench expected and you did not reach for, each as a full authority card with a note on why it mattered and, where the source is public, a View authority link. Unresolved bench questions and Suggested next steps follow.
If anything faltered, a dashed row offers to do something about it. Flag and draft moves the faltering grounds into the Needs work lane with the bench's reason attached, and asks the Assistant for a settled answer. This is the one thing a moot changes outside itself, and it is opt-in. The line under it repeats the rule: the strategy itself is unchanged.
Two buttons close the scorecard: Re-run this mode starts a fresh session on the same bench, and Back to report returns you to the strategy.
Permissions
Starting a session, sending a submission and ending a session are all edits. A collaborator with view-only access can read a session but cannot do any of the three, and End session carries the tooltip Viewers cannot end a session. Roles are set in Collaboration.
Credits
| Action | Mode | Cost | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strategy report | Deep | 35 credits | Any matter |
| Strategy report | Standard | 15 credits | Any matter |
| What-if scenario | - | 5 credits | Asking the report a question is free |
| Moot court session | - | 10 credits | One session, however many turns it runs |
What a session costs
A moot session is charged once, at the moment it starts, however many turns it runs. Resuming an earlier session costs nothing, because it was charged when it began. Reading the scorecard, the bench notes and the cited list is free. See Credits explained.
Next steps
- Reviewing grounds - where the flagged grounds land.
- Verified authorities - the authorities you were expected to cite.
- Exporting and drafting - take the crib sheet to the podium.