Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
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Mooting success for Leeds Beckett University Law students
The students, Ricardo Stone and Daniel Doig, triumphed in the final of the competition, held on Wednesday 26 April. The competition, run by Leeds Beckett University, provides students with practical law experience and the essential skills necessary for life outside the classroom.
A moot is a staged court argument focusing on a particular legal issue or problem and is designed to introduce students to the courtroom experience. In the moot, two pairs of advocates argue their case in front of a judge. The winner is the team who makes the best presentation of their legal arguments, regardless of whether they win their case or not.
The competition concerned a criminal law case on murder and self-defence and was set in the Supreme Court. One of the finalists were arguing the law is correct and should not be changed whilst the other team argued for a change in the law.
Speaking about taking part in the final of the mooting competition, Sinead Corrigan said: “I initially chose to participate in mooting to improve my confidence in public speaking and to improve my CV. I have also developed other valuable skills such as advocacy, legal research and time management during my time within this society with the help of Leona Mydlowski and Ayesha Chowdhury.
“I am grateful to have had the opportunity to represent Leeds Beckett University alongside my learned friends whilst being adjudicated by his Honour, Mr John Harrow. I can now use my mooting experience to demonstrate my development of a range of key graduate attributes in interviews and job applications to distinguish myself from other law students. Although it takes a lot of time and commitment to prepare and rehearse for each competition stage, mooting is a very valuable and rewarding experience that I would encourage any undergraduate student to get involved with.”
Daniel Doig added: “My experience of mooting cannot be underestimated in terms of the way it has improved my ability to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of legal arguments and understand judicial precedent.
“Perhaps most importantly however, it has served as a valuable confidence boost. The final in particular, before a retired judge, was a great experience of public speaking, presenting legal arguments and responding to questioning. It ultimately proved a very rewarding experience and I would recommend it to all law students."
Dev Capps, Head of Leeds Law School at Leeds Beckett, said: "Mooting is an important part of all law programmes and I am delighted that our programme goes from strength to strength at Leeds Law School. The standard of advocacy was the best I have seen in undergraduate students for a long time and the comment from the Judge, that the standards of advocacy shown by the students before him, higher than some of the barristers and advocates he had seen in practice, a real accolade.”
His Honour Harrow was appointed as a Circuit Judge in 2003 and retired as a Circuit Judge with effect from 5 January 2016.