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What is moot court?
Moot Court in law school is generally a team of 2^nd year and 3^rd year students who competitively argue mock appellate cases.

They do so as a team against other schools for some competitions, and against each other for other competitions. More below...

The process leading up to the argument is very taxing, involving researching and writing an appellate brief and practicing for hours. Generally, one can make the moot court team in law school in one of two ways. This and other issues are discussed in our podcast below.

How a moot court competition works.
First, each side writes an appellate brief that is given to the panel of judges before the argument. The appellate argument style in moot court is not the same as the style you be used to through depiction of trials in movies or on television. It is also very different from a mock trial. There are no witnesses, no juries: just two opposing counsels and a panel of judges.

The appellant’s (party appealing the case from the lower court) counsel stands at a podium and interacts alone with the panel of judges for an amount of time. The panel of judges asks the appellant questions, basically attacking the appellant’s legal theories set forth in his or her brief and brought up during argument. The appellee (party that won the case from lower court) then goes through the same process. The appellant counsel then gets back up in front of the panel and has a short amount of time that he or she reserved as rebuttal time.

If you have never witnessed an appellate argument you may be interested in finding the nearest appellate court near you to observe, as most proceedings are open to the public. Although they can be boring and hard to understand, it may be interesting just to get an idea of how courts conduct an appellate proceeding.

My experience with moot court.
I am not on moot court so I have none (so I hope my brief description above is somewhat accurate). I participated in the appellate brief/oral argument competition that all first year students take part in during second semester. However, only the best arguers advanced to moot court. I definitely was not in this group. I can say that writing an appellate brief was the most grueling writing assignment I have had in law school, practicing for the argument was time consuming, and the actual argument was stressful but somewhat fun.

Lucklily, I have friends who were talented enough to advance in this competition and eventually make moot court. Stephanie Caparelli, Sheila Caplis, and Zach Jacobs are second year students who made Moot Court Honor Society at our school, Chicago-Kent. They agreed to participate in a podcast and share information, views, and advice on moot court. A special thanks goes out to these three.

Links:
Blog dedicated to moot court by Professor Kent Streseman
Wikipedia on Appeals Process (what moot court is modeled after)
Chicago-Kent Moot Court Honor Society home page

Listen to the Moot court podast here.