Three Kent Law students are jetting off to Sri Lanka today, on their way to compete in the 11th LAWASIA International Moot Competition 2016.
Law students Melanie Lafresiere, Jas Cheema and Tom Bishop are accompanied by Kent Law School’s Deputy Director of Mooting Johanne Thompson. It is the second year a team from Kent have entered the competition. Last year, final year Law LLB students Orestis Anastasiades, Elena Savvidou and Lizzie Virgo secured a top ten finish in the 10th LAWASIA International Moot Competition 2015 held in Australia in November.
Melanie, Jas and Tom, all Stage 2 law students, were previously successful in applying for a grant of £3,000 from the Student Projects Grant Scheme to help cover travel costs for their trip.
Our mooters will be competing against teams from across the southern hemisphere, including from China, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, and Thailand. This year’s moot problem involves a complex dispute about a breach of agreement for the distribution and branding of tea. Memorials for both the claimant and the respondent were submitted by the Kent team in advance of their arrival.
The international rounds of the moot will take place in Colombo between Thursday 11 August and Sunday 14 August with a final Award Ceremony taking place on Monday 15 August.
This year, Law School Associate Lecturer Dr Gauri Suraweerage-Nanayakkara will also be participating in the event – as one of the panel of judges. Dr Nanayakkara is an accredited Civil and Commercial Mediator, a qualified Solicitor (England and Wales) and an Attorney-at-Law (Sri Lanka). She previously worked as a State Counsel attached to Attorney General’s Department of Sri Lanka and as an Attorney-at- Law with Corporate Law Chambers in Colombo.
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.
On its Facebook page, the Moot Standing Committee says it believes mooting to be a critical component of legal education: ‘Mooting offers a systematic training process of the essential skills of problem solving, legal analysis, drafting legal submissions and the development of public speaking. The ability to articulate one’s thoughts and arguments condensing disparate, often conflicting legal authorities into succinct and persuasive arguments is arguably the single most important weaponry in the lawyer’s arsenal.’
Kent Law School runs an intensive and wide-ranging mooting programme; in recent years the Law School has entered teams in the OUP/BPP Moot, the English Speaking Union Moot, the Jessup International Law Moot, the Oxford French Law Moot, and the UK Student Law Association Moot.