Difference between revisions of "Get Mooting: Rundown of Competitions"

Whether you want to be a solicitor or barrister, you should get involved in mooting while on the GDL. There are plenty of opportunities on offer, both at City and through the Inns of Court.

City

Mooting mad...don't forget to check out our Video Guide

During your first few weeks at City, you will receive information about various mooting competitions. These are a mixture of one-off competitions run by barristers’ chambers organised just for City students, and national competitions which can last throughout the year (depending on how far you go).

Chambers Competitions for City Law School students

Maitland Chambers run a one-off 'advocacy competition' specifically for City GDL students early in the academic year. Entrants must submit a brief skeleton argument on a problem set by Chambers. The four best entrants go through to the final and moot in front of a High Court Judge. Crown Office Chambers hold a competition just for City students across all academic programmes. Places are allocated on a first-come-first-serve basis. There are three rounds which run over three successive weeks.

National Competitions

City also enters five national external mooting competitions:

OUP/BPP 2010-11 Winners Rory Clarke and Mark Humphreys (City GDL students)

• The ICLR's Annual Mooting Competition (City were finalists in this moot 2011-12)
• The OUP and BPP National Mooting Competition (City won this moot in 2010-11)
• The ESU-Essex Court National Mooting Competition
• London Universities Mooting Shield (undergraduates only)
• The UKLSA National Inter-University Mooting Competition - read a review of the 2011-12 Moot via Mooting site (City won this Moot in 2011-12)

Teams are chosen on the basis of skeleton arguments on moot problems which are sent around in the first term. Teams of two will generally be selected for each competition. Depending on who you draw, these competitions can involve travel to far off corners of the UK (City will cough up the train fare). The early rounds are generally judged by barristers or academics and the finals are judged by High Court or Crown Court judges.

Internal Competitions

Big events within the Law School are the 2 internal competitions; the GDL Competition and the City Scholars Mooting Competition (for LLB2, LLB3, GELLB and LLM students).

The first round of the GDL Competition will be at the end of term 1 and the next three rounds (depending on how many students sign up!) will be in term 2. The first two rounds will be judged by members of staff and the third by practitioners. The final will be judged by a High Court Judge..Lord Hoffmann (the Hoffmeister) judged the final in 2009 and Lord Mance in 2010, 2011 and 2012. Read about the GDL Final 2012 via Future Lawyer.

The City Scholars Moot was judged by Lady Hale in 2012 - you can read all about the excitement on our Future Lawyer blog.

Anyone can enter and so it’s the best way of gaining some public speaking experience, even if you’re knocked out in the first round, though that’s obviously not ideal!

Term Two heralds the final competition of the year at City: the Crown Office Moot. This Moot happens thanks to the generosity of Crown Office Chambers: all rounds are judged by judges from their chambers and they also put up the prize money. See info above in the Chambers Competitions section.

Inns of Court

Outside of City, the Inns of Court lay on several mooting competitions throughout the year. Check the mooting pages of your Inn to see when their mooting competitions are held and how to enter. You’ll generally be up against BPTC students – it’s always fun to beat people who supposedly have more experience that you. The Inner Temple Lawson Moot was won by a City student in 2008, so it's always good to keep up the winning tradition. The competitions at the Inns also tend to be on more interesting areas of law that your standard ‘postal rule of acceptance’ moot. For instance, in 2009 there were moot problems on clinical negligence, public international law and even space law (ie who owns the moon).

Inner Temple organise an Inter-Varsity Moot which is open to all - team selection usually happens around November. Lincoln's Inn hold an inter-provider moot competition for their students via speed-mooting heats, usually around November. Middle Temple hold the Rosamond Smith Mooting Competition annually for its GDL and BPTC members.

Mooting can be hard work. But it’s a lot of fun and is great preparation for interviews later in the year where you’ll often have to do submissions and presentations.

Many thanks to Michael Edwards for this excellent piece. Michael was a GDL student at City from 2008-09 and a finalist in the OUP/BPP competition.

International Moots

The Monroe E. Price International Media Law Moot Court Competition

The Monroe E. Price International Media Law Moot Court Competitionis organised by the Programme in Comparative Media Law & Policy at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford, in collaboration with the International Media Lawyers Association (IMLA). The moot's aim is 'to expand and stimulate an interest in Media Law and Policy among students from law and other disciplines, who will develop expertise in arguing a case before an international bench of judges from different legal systems and backgrounds'.

City won't be entering this competition in 2012-13.

The European Law Moot Court Competition

Information on this ELMC moot is fairly sketchy at the moment but City will be looking to get involved in this European Competition.