Oral Advocacy on Virtual Platforms: Zoom and Doom?’

One of the many disappointments of the Covid-19 pandemic was that students from all over the world could no longer descend on a destination like Vienna or The Hague to battle it out in moot court. Rather, moot court combat occurred online, and sometimes even from dorm rooms and bedrooms. Similarly, practical assessments at university, such as client interviews and negotiations, were also conducted online, rather than face-to-face. Online advocacy has out of necessity undergone a revolution in the past two years, but it could also be argued that these recent events are the beginning of an evolution in the practice of oral advocacy. Some may feel that the online experience is ‘second best’ and a temporary measure; others may consider the online experience as equivalent, and a permanent part of lawyering in the future. There are important questions that need to be answered from the perspective of legal educators. Are different skills needed? If so, what are those skills and how do we teach them? Are the pedagogical benefit of online advocacy equivalent to face-to-face advocacy? This paper addresses these questions, and also whether oral advocacy on a virtual platform is a case of ‘zoom and doom’.