Final-year Kent Law LLB student Aaron Patrick is representing Kent in Cambodia this week at the 13th LAWASIA International Moot Competition 2018.
Aaron, accompanied by Kent Law School’s Senior Lecturer Johanne Thompson, is competing with 13 teams from China, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. Teams will be tackling a complex arbitration moot problem concerning a dispute over a commercial contract and will be working under the Kuala Lumpur Regional Centre for Arbitration Arbitration Rules.
The competition begins today in Siem Reap but memorials for both the claimant and the respondent were submitted by all teams in advance of their arrival. A final Award Ceremony to close the competition will be held on Sunday 4 November at the Sofitel Angkor Phokeethra Golf & Spa Resort.
The annual moot is organised by LAWASIA, an international organisation of lawyers’ associations, individual lawyers, judges and legal academics in the Asia Pacific region; the chair of its Moot Standing Committee is Kent alumnus Raphael Tay, a partner at Chooi & Company in Kualar Lumpur. The competition is organised in conjunction with the LAWASIA International Conference and many of the conference delegates (who include legal advisers, attorneys and judges) act as moot judges.
It is the fourth year a team from Kent have entered the competition; in 2015, final year Law LLB students Orestis Anastasiades, Elena Savvidou and Lizzie Virgo secured a top ten finish in the 10th LAWASIA International Moot Competition held in Australia; in 2016, Melanie Lafresiere, Jas Cheema and Tom Bishop competed in the 11th LAWASIA competition held in Sri Lanka; and in 2017 Maariyah Baig, Cara Hall and Keegan Adsett-Bowrin competed in the 12th LAWASIA competition held in Japan.
Kent Law School runs an intensive and wide-ranging mooting programme based in a purpose built moot room in the Wigoder Law Building; in recent years the Law School has entered teams in the: OUP/BPP Moot; English Speaking Union Moot; Jessup International Law Moot; Inner Temple inter-varsity moot; Landmark Chambers moot (property law); inter-varsity medical law moot at Leicester University; Southern Varsity Shield; and inter-varsity Mackay Cup (Canadian Law).
Image credit: LawAsia Moot Committee