Hold as many practice arguments as you can.
Practice arguments do two things: First, they teach you about your case by presenting new questions to you and giving you a chance to consider your answers. Second, they give you needed practice to polish your performance for the competition.
You should recruit as many judges as you can beg, borrow, or steal. Begin to plan a schedule of practice arguments as early as possible. Rules often prohibit holding practice arguments until after the briefs are filed, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get them on your schedule. Take advantage of the time leading up to the brief due date to get as many practice arguments as possible on your post-due date schedule. The more different judges you have, the more different questions you will be exposed to, and the less frequently you will face an unexpected question at the competition. At each practice, one of the team members not at the podium should be assigned the task of recording all of the questions that are asked. The team can study them later to identify questions that require more research or thought. Furthermore, you will discover which questions you are most likely to hear at the competition, and you can take the time to develop strong answers to those questions.
The typical format for a practice argument is to treat it like a regular moot court: to time it in the way that it will be timed at the competition and to hold a critique after the argument. This format will be fine for most of your practices. For at least some practices, however — perhaps those with just your coach acting as judge — you may want to break the mold. If you get a question that stumps you, stop the clock and talk it out. Confer with your teammates or your coach as to the best way to handle the question. If you think you need to do more research, jot down ideas to help you get started.
This type of practice can help to improve the presentation of your most important points.
Although in real life judges do not particularly care about diction, an advocate whose arguments are easier to understand will score more points than one who struggles to put his or her thoughts into words. If you have a good answer but cannot phrase it effectively, stop and take the time to figure out the best way to make your point. Strong subject-verb combinations and concrete language are even more important to easy comprehension in oral argument than they are in writing. Instead of saying, e.g., “The concerns over officer safety that justified the search incident to an arrest also justified the lesser intrusion presented by the issuance of a citation,” say, “The search was justified because police officers are in as much danger when they give a driver a ticket as when they put a driver under arrest.”In addition to planning how you will answer questions, you should use your practice arguments to practice for “positions of emphasis” in the oral argument: the introduction and the conclusion. In addition, plan how to deal with predictable problems, like a cold court or your opponent’s misstatements.