While most of the curriculum at Harvard during this time consisted of lecture and student recitation,
skills development was also provided in the form of weekly moot courts, during which students argued questions of law
before professors and submitted occasional written disputations on
legal subjects.121 Although Stearns had previously used moot courts in his teaching at Harvard, Story and Ashmun refined them.122 Cases were handed out the week
before argument, and two
counsel were assigned to each side.123 The cases would then be argued the next Friday, with the other students taking notes of the argument; the professor in charge that week would issue a written opinion.124