News
Country's best set for mooting show-down
Law schools throughout the country have chosen their top mooting teams to compete in the annual mooting finals.
The winners of the regional competitions are Alice Irving and Kate Muirhead (University of Otago), Jamie Eng and Oliver Searle (Victoria University), Jeni Fountain and Dan Robins (University of Waikato), Sally Trafford and Sam Clearwater (University of Auckland) and two former Bell Gully summer clerks, David Turner and David Stevens (University of Canterbury).
Each year the Bell Gully mooting competition enables students to research legal issues and to test and develop their skills in a courtroom setting. Using a fictitious legal case, students, in teams of two, present their argument before a judge. They are assessed on the content and style of their argument and their replies to questions from the bench.
Students this year tackled complex arguments, several focusing on the recently enacted Evidence Act 2006. Victoria University winners Jamie Eng and Oliver Searle were presented with a commercial dispute and the issue of whether two documents were protected by legal privilege. Jamie says that while he found the new Act challenging to come to grips with initially, it was a great opportunity to deal with the new law in a "really practical" way.
The winners of each university competition will now compete in the national finals during the New Zealand Law Students' Association annual national conference in Auckland from 2-5 September.
The winners of the national moot will go on to compete against the world's best, representing New Zealand in the Philip C Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition in Washington D.C.
Bell Gully is proud to be a long-term sponsor of mooting in New Zealand. The firm supports the competitions by providing mooting problems, judges, and financial assistance.
