Debate Policies and Format

Each debate will feature two teams taking opposite sides of the "Resolved" question for the topic. A team will generally consist of one law student and one computer science student; presentations must address both the legal and technical aspects of the question. Both students on a team must participate (and will be graded individually), but there is no requirement that students "stay in their lane". In fact, we encourage the opposite (and will take that into account in the grading).

Teams and topics will be self-organized. Being on the same debate team with someone on your project team is discouraged.

Each side should prepare an opening statement of about 6 minutes; there will then be a 4-minute rebuttal by each team. Slides are strongly discouraged unless necessary to show, e.g., a graph. The rebuttal should be just that: rebutting points that the other team has made, or noting things that they have missed in your presentation. After that, there will be questioning, primarily by the rest of the class. The total time will be about 45 minutes.