Planning a fifteen-minute submission
Fictional teaching example — not legal authority.
An invented fifteen-minute plan with a reserved reply
An advocate has fifteen minutes in total and decides to reserve two minutes for reply, leaving thirteen minutes of main submission time to allocate.
| Segment | Time | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Opening and roadmap | 1:00 | Identify yourself, state the relief sought, list the issues in order |
| Issue one | 5:00 | The argument that must land, taken first while the panel is fresh |
| Issue two | 5:00 | The supporting argument, compressible if questioning runs long |
| Requested disposition | 2:00 | State precisely what order you are asking the panel to make |
| Main submission subtotal | 13:00 | Opening plus both issues plus disposition |
| Reserved reply | 2:00 | Held back and used only to answer what the other side said |
| Total | 15:00 | Main submission plus reply |
The same plan sets three checkpoints at five minutes, two minutes and one minute remaining. Five minutes is the signal to be finishing issue two, two minutes is the signal to move to the disposition whatever is unfinished, and one minute is the signal to stop developing anything new. Every number above is invented for teaching.
Your competition's official rules, the panel and the timekeeper control the real thing. Reply time may not be available, may be fixed rather than reserved, and questioning may or may not stop the clock. Read the rules and plan to them; this page cannot.
What the toolkit actually does
| Module | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| Timer | Counts down from the total you set by comparing timestamps rather than counting ticks, so a backgrounded tab, a locked screen or a slow device is reconciled on the next reading instead of drifting. Pauses are subtracted from elapsed time. |
| Checkpoints | You define the remaining-time marks that matter. A checkpoint announces once when the clock crosses it and is not re-announced. |
| Phases | Your named segments and their durations are laid out on a schedule, and the toolkit shows which segment the current reading falls in. |
| Outline | Sections you write carry your own planned times. The toolkit totals them and compares that total against the time available, reporting the difference. |
| Bench questions | Questions you type are stored verbatim with the status you assign, and can be filtered by status. Wording is never edited or rephrased. |
| Authorities checklist | Rows you enter are counted for completion of the boxes you tick. Completion measures your own ticks, nothing else. |
| Exports | Outline, questions, authorities and the full plan are exported as plain text in a fixed order and heading structure. |
Every number, name, question and authority in the toolkit is one you typed. The toolkit performs arithmetic on times and presence counts, and nothing else.
A rehearsal method that uses these modules
- Run it uninterrupted. Start the timer at your full allocation and deliver the submission end to end without stopping. Note which phase you were in when each checkpoint sounded.
- Run it interrupted. Have someone interrupt with questions at unpredictable moments, and log each question verbatim afterwards. The wording matters: rephrasing a question into the one you wanted is the most common rehearsal mistake.
- Find the gaps. Filter the question log by status. Anything still marked to research is an unanswered question, and unanswered questions are where submissions come apart.
- Verify authorities. Work down the checklist and confirm you have read each authority, can state its ratio, and know its pinpoint. Tick only what is true.
- Revise the time plan. Compare your outline total against the time available and cut where the uninterrupted run overran. This is an organizational revision, not advocacy advice: what to argue and how hard to press it are your decisions and your coach's.
Supported and unsupported
| Supported | Not supported |
|---|---|
| Timing a rehearsal with pauses, phases and your own checkpoints | Official or authoritative timing for a competition or hearing |
| Planning segment times and comparing your outline total to the time available | Writing arguments, scripts, opening lines or answers to bench questions |
| Recording your own bench questions verbatim with a status | Suggesting, evaluating or scoring your responses or your advocacy |
| Listing and ticking authorities you have verified yourself | Finding, validating or noting up authorities, or assessing their strength |
| Copying the fixed plain-text exports and printing them | Team synchronization, shared sessions or sending anything to a coach |
| Returning to the tab you last used within the same browser session | Durable storage: your outline, questions and authorities are not saved |
Where to go next
- Export the plan before you close the tab, since only the name of the tab you were on survives, never your content.
- Move verified authorities into the Table of Authorities Builder when you turn to the factum.
- Re-read your competition's rules on time, reply and questioning, then adjust the allocation to match them rather than to match this page.
Privacy, academic integrity and independence
Privacy on this page. Timing, planning and logging all happen in your browser. Your outline text, questions and authorities are never sent to a server, never placed in the page URL, and never included in analytics or logs. The only thing this page stores is the name of the module tab you last selected, kept in session storage so the tab does not reset while you work; it contains none of your content and is discarded when the browser session ends. Everything else is held in page memory: reloading the page or pressing Reset discards it, with no autosave and no recovery. Copying an export or printing the page exposes that content to your own device's clipboard, printer and print-to-file destination. Do not enter confidential, sealed or publication-banned material.
Academic integrity. The toolkit organizes rehearsal; it does not participate in it. Every argument, authority and answer must be your own work, and your competition's rules on collaboration, coaching and permitted materials govern what help you may accept.
Independence. LegalCalc Ontario is independent. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to any court, tribunal, moot competition, organizer, law school or publisher. Timing here has no official status: the timekeeper and the panel control the clock.