From the waist up: developing psychomotor skills for the court room

A vital aspect of successful advocacy is effective engagement by the advocate with the Bench (and jury). However, rarely are these skills naturally occurring or at least the natural (untailored) psychomotor repertoire is not necessarily well adapted to advocacy. More often these skills are developed or refined to the specific requirements of advocacy by mooting practice. Assisting future advocates to develop effective psychomotor skills therefore is a core component of any mooting programme. This article explains the relevance of the psychomotor domain to advocacy and identifies the matters that must be addressed with mooters in order for them appropriately to develop these skills. In so doing, it positions the mooting psychomotor domain in context with the cognitive and affective domains.     

Can We Protect How We Do What We Do? A Consideration of Business Method Patents in Australia and Europe

In the long history of monopolies, business method patents area novel and recent edition. In the Digital Age, where time ismoney and speed is everything, innovative methods for undertakingbusiness are as important to a business as the products or servicesit provides to its clients. In recent years several reviews,conducted in both Australia and internationally,⁴ have questionedthe appropriateness of patenting business methods. This paperreviews the availability of business method patents in Australiain light of the 2006 decision of the Full Court of the FederalCourt in Grant v Commissioner of Patents,⁵ which confirmed theneed in Australia for a ‘useful product’ to issuefrom the working of a method (business or otherwise) in orderfor the method to be patentable. This paper will review argumentsboth criticising and defending business method patents and considerwhether business methods warrant special treatment.     

Chill out! Mooting and the affective domain

A vital aspect of successful advocacy is effective engagement by the advocate with the Bench. However, even where mooters have innate skills and talents, they are susceptible to sub-optimal performance where anxiety impedes their transition from innate skill to competition. Stage fright is common in many fields where public performance of a repertoire is the crucial and determinative measure of achievement. However, while anxiety is an inevitable, and often negative, aspect of any performance, there is in fact a range of anxietal intensity that is conducive to optimal performance. Assisting future advocates to recognise their optimal level of anxiety, and manage their anxiety throughout the preparation and participation phases of moot competitions is a significant role for the moot coach. This article explores anxiety as a principal artefact of the affective domain, its relevance to advocacy, and proposes a model against which moot coaches can frame preparation of mooting teams against a principled construct of the anxiety/mooting relationship. In so doing, it positions the affective domain as it relates to mooting in context with the cognitive and psychomotor domains.