Civil Procedure Drafting & Submission

Finally, I got the chance to blog about this. 4th year was very tiring and pack with a lot of assignments to be submitted, and I’m talking about the procedural subjects which are really challenging and blurry at times. When you learn procedural law, in the present case – civil procedure; drafting the paper work is the most important aspect that must be mastered, especially for lawyers.

However, as a beginner, me and my group got stuck in drafting the papers for a few weeks at the beginning of the semester because all four of us are still grasping the main concept of the subject. Although we have undergo the law attachment programme last year, but we still need some time to fine tune.

The subject of Civil Procedure 1 is taught during the first semester of our final year in IIUM. As a method of assessment, we are required to do drafting works for either a Striking Out of Summary Judgement application. Then, we are to submit the application in chambers in front of the lecturer, acting as the registrar.

There should be 4 students in one group. My group members are Rizq, Farida, Ana, and myself. Combined together, we named our group as Messrs Azrizq & Farina – conjoining our names together.

Our submission is scheduled to be on a Saturday, at 4 PM. Since we wanted to edit the paper work here and there, plus prepare for the submission; we decided to pull an all-nighter at a McDonald’s branch somewhere in KL.

Here are some pictures of us burning the midnight oil.

Farida, Rizq & Me. This was taken 1 hour after our arrival. I know that because I notice all of the papers on the table. It wasn’t that messy earlier – everybody was on facebook before the work started. :p

Another picture. This time, it is with Ana, my partner in crime the submission.

Okay another group picture. This is taken at 3 AM. Still energetic and cheerful.

An hour later – 4 AM. Any changes in our faces?  I think that our smile has begun to fade a little. Any other differences?

Okay back to serious work. Farida & Rizq are the Defendant’s solicitors.

While me and Ana are representing the Plaintiffs.

We stayed up editing our submission until about 6 am. It was exciting actually to work together with such wonderfull groupmates and that really helped in giving the motivation for us to finish up our work and editing it to be perfect. I guess team work really does pay off.

We called it a day and decided to go back to IIUM to perform the subuh prayers and catch up on our sleep. Thank god, our submission is at 4 PM. That gives us some time to rest and make last-minute preparations.

We didn’t get that much sleep. I woke up at 11 AM and quickly prepare myself – wearing court attire in order to present myself for the submission. It was a really chaotic day. With the lack of sleep, and the nervousness – I really hope that the day passes by quickly.

 

  Making final preparations – reading all the documents that we have prepared, in order to master ourselves about the case that was to be presented.

 

Haha, nak jugak masuk bergambar.

Well, the submission went smoothly unexpectedly. Unexpectedly – because we were hearing from other groups that files were being thrown out, students are being attacked and scolded for lack of preparation and all sorts. That doesn’t happen during our submission.

Our lecturer, Professor Juriah was very supporting and gave us the chance to present our case well. In fact, she gave us some pointers in order to divert our submission to the right path. Alhamdullillah, praises to god.

I was pretty relieved especially when Prof Juriah expressly said that I was quite good in presenting during the deliberation. My groupmates also did great themselves. At the end, the application from the defendants was rejected and my clients were given the chance to proceed with an action in the High Court.

      Our smiling faces, relieved after the submission with the lawyerly look.

 

As planned earlier, we treated ourselves with a fiest of pizza at Domino’s Pizza at Giant Batu Caves. We used the coupon that I have to buy 2 sets of large pizza, 2 regular, and 1 banana desert pizza. That was our breakfast, lunch, and dinner for that day.

Alhamdullillah, everything went well. Thanks to all of my groupmates that have make this task an enjoyable one. In fact, I can say that this is the best group that I’ve worked with throughout my years as a law student. Hopefully, we will be united again next semester for Civil Procedure 2!

Wassalam.