Law students reach finals weekend in national competition
LSBU law students reached the finals weekend of the prestigious Blackstones National Advocacy Competition after scoring highly in earlier roundsAustin Young and George Nixon, accompanied by Director of Mooting Paul Wynell-Sutherland scored highly during earlier rounds of the competition held at LSBU and the University of Sussex.
The Competition focuses on trial advocacy and requires participants to demonstrate court room skills such as trail advocacy and witness handling.
As well as conducting the trial for the Crown or Defence, the teams were also required to demonstrate legal knowledge and procedure whilst conducting pre-trial reviews and submitting written legal papers.
“All in all it was no less than what was required of a barrister in court” said presiding Judge Simon Walsh of 5 Essex Court Chambers, who complimented the teams on their excellent performance.
The finals weekend started with a one-day gruelling trial where the LSBU team was pitted against a postgraduate team from Oxford Brookes University. Austin and George acquitted themselves extremely well and secured a place in the coveted semi-finals the following day.
Despite not reaching the finals later that day, the experience was a wonderful triumph for our second and third year law students.
Director of Mooting, Paul Wynell-Sutherland, who attended the finals weekend, was delighted at the students’ performance and stated “I could not be more proud of the accomplishment of these students”.
Austin Young who represented LSBU throughout the competition said:
“Whilst I actively participate and I am passionate about mooting, it was exhilarating to see another side of advocacy and experience advocacy in a proper court room setting. Having progressed to the finals weekend, I got to learn from seasoned barristers and their experiences in a workshop on the first evening of the weekend. After this, we had another mock trial and several pre-trial applications.
“Even though we were knocked out of the competition after the semi-finals, it was a really fantastic experience.”