What can I actually practise?
One room, four kinds of hearing.
What changes between them is not the interface — it is who is in the room, who may object, and on what grounds.
Oral argument
You argue to the bench. Opposing counsel argues back.
No witness
Objection grounds live here — 4 of 8
- Leadingnot eligible here
- Hearsaynot eligible here
- Speculationnot eligible here
- Argumentativenot eligible here
- Relevancestraying outside the issues
- Assumes facts not in the recordasserting something never established
- Mischaracterises the recordrestating the record as it is not
- Calls for a legal conclusionurging a conclusion the record cannot carry
Motion hearing
The same shape, argued on a motion — and optionally on a clock.
No witness
Objection grounds live here — 4 of 8
- Leadingnot eligible here
- Hearsaynot eligible here
- Speculationnot eligible here
- Argumentativenot eligible here
- Relevancestraying outside the issues
- Assumes facts not in the recordasserting something never established
- Mischaracterises the recordrestating the record as it is not
- Calls for a legal conclusionurging a conclusion the record cannot carry
Direct examination
Your own witness, answering fully and in their own words.
A witness who answers only from the record
Objection grounds live here — 8 of 8
- Leadingsuggesting the answer to your own witness
- Hearsayan out-of-court statement offered through a witness
- Speculationtestimony without personal knowledge
- Argumentativebadgering, or argument disguised as a question
- Relevancestraying outside the issues
- Assumes facts not in the recordasserting something never established
- Mischaracterises the recordrestating the record as it is not
- Calls for a legal conclusionurging a conclusion the record cannot carry
Cross-examination
The same witness, called by the other side. Careful rather than hostile.
A witness who volunteers nothing
Objection grounds live here — 7 of 8
- Leadingnot eligible here
- Hearsayan out-of-court statement offered through a witness
- Speculationtestimony without personal knowledge
- Argumentativebadgering, or argument disguised as a question
- Relevancestraying outside the issues
- Assumes facts not in the recordasserting something never established
- Mischaracterises the recordrestating the record as it is not
- Calls for a legal conclusionurging a conclusion the record cannot carry
The 4 argument grounds are live in every proceeding. What changes between them is the witness-testimony set — because there has to be a witness to lead, or to have heard something secondhand. Read from the classifier itself on every build, not written down here.
Argument, and why the evidentiary grounds are absent from it
In oral argument you argue to the bench and opposing counsel argues back. Nobody is testifying, so the evidentiary grounds do not apply — and a bench that sustained "hearsay" against an argument would be teaching you a reflex that will embarrass you in a real courtroom.
A motion hearing is the same shape, argued on a motion. The bench can be neutral, cold, or hot — a hot bench interrupts readily, presses the weak link, and follows up rather than accepting your first answer. A cold one says almost nothing and lets you fill the silence, which is its own kind of difficult.
You can also put yourself on a clock: three lights, a warning before time, and a bench that cuts you off when it expires — because the skill of finishing on time is not the skill of arguing well, and both are tested at a podium.
The witness answers only from the record
On direct and on cross there is a witness, and the witness answers you. They testify only from the record — the pleading, the case facts, what has been established in the room. Ask something the record does not answer and you get "I don't recall", not an invention. That constraint is the whole value: a witness who makes things up would have you practising against a case that does not exist.
On direct they are your own witness: cooperative, answering fully, in their own words, and the widest set of objections is live — including leading, the one ground that exists on direct and not on cross.
On cross they are the other side's: careful rather than hostile, answering the narrow question, volunteering nothing, conceding only what the record leaves them no room to deny. Hearsay, speculation and argumentative are live here — leading is not, and its absence is the point. Leading questions are permitted on cross-examination; a room that objected to one would be teaching you to flinch at the very technique cross is built on.
When the bench sustains it
The answer is struck: marked in the record, never deleted. Deleting it would make the replay disagree with what you remember hearing. Leaving it unmarked would let the scorecard credit you with testimony the court excluded — which is the opposite of what sustaining an objection means.
Difficulty is a setting, not a mood
Every difficulty setting is declared before the session starts.
Bench temperament, how readily opposing counsel objects, whether a witness is cooperative or evasive, and any curveball thrown at you mid-argument — all of it is written down in advance.
That matters more than it sounds. If the room simply decided to be harder today, you could never tell a session that went badly from a session that was harder. Declaring it is what makes a change in your score attributable to you.