The BYU law school's annual Moot Court competition will be hosting its semi-finals and final round Tuesday and Thursday.

The Moot Court program is a co-curricular program of the law school. In the program students gain appellate advocacy experience, both in writing and arguing before a court. This means it is basically a simulated court situation where teams of students are chosen to argue different sides of a certain case that is presented.

"I think that I have really been able to broaden so many of my skills in so many areas by participating in the moot court," said Chris Droubay, the president of the Moot Court board, and third-year law student. "It is such a rewarding experience for the students involved."

All first-year law students participate in Moot Court by writing an appellate brief and giving an oral argument. Participation in the second and third years of law school is by invitation only. During the first semester of their second year, Moot Court members will participate in an intra-school competition to determine BYU's National Moot Court team. This is the competition that is taking place currently. This team then goes on to represent the school in regional and national competitions.

"We send our teams all over the country to compete against other law school teams," said Professor John Fee, the adviser overseeing the moot court. "Many of them perform very well in these competitions."

BYU has held a Moot Court competition since the early days of the law school in the 1970's.

"I really took out of the competition the knowledge that I can write a brief," said Kiersty Loughmiller, director of the competition, and third year BYU law student. "It definitely is a lot of fun."

The program itself is run primarily by a student board, who oversee the structure of the competition along with choosing the members who will be on the teams. Students on the different teams then participate in a tournament-like format going through different rounds with the winning team advancing to the next round.

The semi-finals for the competition will be held on Tuesday, while the final will be held on Thursday.

For the final round the law school is bringing in some very reputable judges including a federal judge from Utah and the chief justice on the Supreme Court from Arizona.

"The most important thing to be successful is to understand the problem and understand the law and be able to apply it to the problem," Fee said. "Oratory skills are important, but the ability to analyze the problem from a legal standpoint is key."