The team was formed in October 2008. Seven members were selected out of about 30 candidates. The team started to work immediately. Preparations to the moot involved diverse skills: legal research, legal writing, and then – oral argumentation. First of all, we had to collect as much relevant information as we could. It was then when we learned about prominent scholars, when we found about famous commentaries and case law. Then we developed our line of argumentation, chose the theories we decided to follow, and those we preferred to leave aside. Our memorandum for Claimant was due in early December; then, in late January, we submitted memorandum for Respondent.
Next, we started to prepare to the oral rounds. This required a lot of work on our rhetoric skills; we had to present our legal arguments in the most persuasive way. It was a great challenge, but in the same time, a lot of fun. In February we had an amazing opportunity to meet Professor Peter B. Rutledge from University of Georgia. Professor Rutledge gave us an excellent feedback; after intensive training with him we were able to face other teams at the pre-moot held in Warsaw.
It was the first time that a pre-moot took place in Poland. The University of Warsaw organized and hosted this event. Other teams that participated were: University of Warsaw, University of Silesia, Adam Mickiewicz University, University of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński , University of Bonn, University of Marburg, University of Erlangen-Nurnberg and Masaryk University. Thanks to the pre-moot, we were able to improve our argumentation skills and also make friends with students from other universities.
We were additionally supported by Dr Marcin Olechowski and Mr. Sławomir Uss of Sołtysiński, Kawecki & Szlęzak law firm from Warsaw, who gave us a hand at each stage of the preparations. They served as arbitrators during our trainings and provided us with a lot of really useful feedback.
We also benefited from a training with Mr. Sylwester Pieckowski of the Warsaw law firm Chadbourne&Parke. Shortly before leaving for Vienna we were fortunate to meet the winner of the 2008 Vis Moot, Guillermo Garcia-Perrote from Carlos III University of Madrid. He shared his experience and enthusiasm with us, giving us a good grasp of what the moot is about.
Six months of preparations passed in a glance. In the beginning, we had only a vague idea of what international commercial arbitration was. After those six months, we gained an in-depth knowledge of the matter and improved our lawyer skills significantly. Vienna was waiting for us.
