Mooting success

OU law students have won two prestigious mooting awards: the ICLR (The Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England and Wales) National Mooting Tournament, and, the 2013 Welsh National Mooting competition. A moot is designed to resemble a case heard before a judge in court and was originally a teaching tool for apprentice barristers in the Inns of Court. The moot judges are looking for persuasive legal argument that is well presented and clearly structured.

ICLR National Mooting Tournament

Catherine Flint and Dr Fathi Tarada took part in the ICLR final, held in the hall of Gray’s Inn in London against students from Leeds University Law School. 32 teams entered this tournament in the autumn of 2012 and the OU Law School students progressed through four rounds to the final. Along the way they have beaten mooting teams from Coventry, Exeter and City universities.

Keren Bright, Law Programme Director, OU Law School said: “OU Law students have only entered the ICLR national mooting tournament in the last four years. They have reached the final in three of those years and won twice. This is a truly exceptional achievement by truly exceptional students.”

The moot judges were Mr Justice Mitting and Mr Justice Turner, who are High Court Judges.  Mr Justice Mitting commended both mooting teams for their ‘very high levels of advocacy’, but reserved the highest praise for OU senior counsel Catherine Flint, describing her advocacy as 'outstanding'.

Catherine said: “I never for one moment thought I would have made it through to the final of such a prestigious competition. And to actually win is amazing. To receive such words of praise from senior members of the judiciary has made me even more certain that a career at the Bar is what I want. It's been an incredible learning experience and a real team effort. Getting involved with The Open University Law Society and mooting has provided an excellent opportunity to meet and work with other students, and their support and encouragement has been invaluable.”

The case concerned acts of sadomasochism between a consenting husband and wife. Whilst sadomasochism in itself is not unlawful, there is a threshold between criminal and non-criminal activity. The subject matter of the case inevitably gave rise to flashes of humour. In her submissions Catherine made reference to 'many shades of grey' and Mr Justice Turner spoke of the '50 shades of Gray’s Inn'.

OU finalist and junior counsel Dr Tarada said: “I was making my entry to the Bar conditional on today. I received some excellent career advice from Justices Mitting and Turner after the moot, and they had some really kind words to say about my performance, which was very encouraging. In addition, many OU students gave their time freely to support Cat and myself in preparing our skeleton arguments and submissions, and we are indebted for their contributions. This exchange of ideas made our preparation for the moots so much more interesting and made me feel part of a community.”

Pictured above from left to right: Mr Justice Mitting, Dr Fathi Tarada, Keren Bright, Catherine Flint and Mr Justice Turner

Welsh National Mooting competition 2013

The winning OU team included Amy Woolfson, senior counsel and Marie Morton, junior counsel who beat teams from five other Universities, including Cardiff, Aberystwyth, Bangor and Glamorgan, to reach the final against Swansea University who hosted the event.

The case in the moot final was a criminal one, in which Amy and Marie acted on behalf of the Crown. The legal argument concerned the definition of the mens rea for murder (that is, the state of mind required for criminal conviction). The legal argument also concerned the principle of causation and ultimately whether the jury in the criminal trial had been properly directed and was heard by His Honour John Diehl QC, a retired circuit judge and Recorder for Swansea. This was only the second time the OU had entered this prestigious event and the first time it had won it.

Speaking after the event Amy Woolfson said, "I am so incredibly pleased to have been able to win this for the OU. Many of the other teams had benefitted from formal advocacy coaching, whereas OU law students run their team through the student law association. I had never met my junior before, although we had talked on the phone many times. I was senior counsel for the OU in last year's competition where we missed out on the final by one point. So it was particularly satisfying to go back and win against last year's victors on their own patch. We had a thankless case to argue in the final, but the judge praised us for our highly persuasive arguments."

Keren Bright said “This is a truly fantastic achievement which demonstrates the determination, independence and will to succeed shown by many of our students. Those who choose to study Law with the OU find themselves far better prepared for real challenges in the legal environment, just like Amy and Marie.”

The Welsh National Mooting Competition in 2014 will be hosted by the OU in Wales.

Pictured above Marie Morton, on the left, and Amy Woolfson

Posted on 9 May 2013