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Kiwi law students tackle tough competition in Washington
New Zealand's Jessup Cup mooting team has put in a strong performance up against an unprecedented number of competitors at the Washington DC event.
University of Canterbury law students Colin Fyfe, Janna McGuigan, James Shaerf and Justin Wall were accompanied by coach Dr Chris Gallavin from Canterbury's law school for the intense week-long competition, which this year attracted 110 teams from around the globe.
While the team did not make the final 24, Dr Gallavin says they learned a lot from the experience and enjoyed themselves.
Mooting is a centuries-old way of training law students to present an argument. Using a fictitious legal case, students – usually in pairs – present their side of the argument before a judge. They can be questioned by the judge and are assessed on style and the content of their oral argument, and of any written submissions required.
The New Zealand team that won the right to contest the Jessup Cup was a particularly strong one, having won not only the NZ national competition but also making the semi-finals at the Commonwealth Mooting Competition in London and being placed runner-up at Australian Law Students Association (ALSA).
In Washington they were faced with four moots - up against Poland, Iraq, Ireland and Finland.
Dr Gallavin says the Iraq moot was perhaps the most difficult. "Interpreters from the US State Department were used to translate from English to Arabic. This meant that for every question the English-speaking judges asked the Iraq team, they asked 10 of us."
The other moots were very close run affairs.
The final was between New York's Columbia University and Venezuela. Columbia won the competition.
Dr Gallavin says: "Mooting at Jessup is a very different affair from that which we see in our southern hemisphere competitions. The style of presentation is firmly in the US Supreme Court style. Oralists do not stop. Taking a moment to collect your thoughts after a question is often seen as an invitation by another judge to ask a completely unrelated question.
"Jessup places students under a peculiar type of pressure that they are unlikely to encounter at university or in practice. The 10 days we were there were very stressful indeed for them. But they thoroughly enjoyed their experience. As coach it was great to see them develop as individuals. It is experiences like that which help sculpt our students."
He says the team sees the Jessup competition as unfinished business and are determined to get back to compete again.
"They have learnt so much about what it means to compete at Jessup so irrespective of which university represents NZ next time around I know that our team would be keen to pass on their advice."
The team travelled to the Jessup Cup with the support of sponsors including Bell Gully and the New Zealand Law Foundation.
Bell Gully is a long-time sponsor of university mooting. The firm supports a range of university mooting competitions and assists national winners to compete internationally. Bell Gully's litigation partners also provide expertise as part of competition judging panels.
For more information, please contact:
Richard Scragg
Moot Master, Senior Lecturer
University of Canterbury School of Law
64 3 364 2987 ext 8797
