Ella ten Doeschate, a finalist on the Law with German LLB, and eventual overall winner of the mooting final, explains how she reached the final of the mooting module and what it meant to moot in the Supreme Court:
‘I chose to participate in the mooting module to improve my advocacy skills and gain further mooting experience.
My experience of the module itself involved learning moot specific research techniques, presentation, and advocacy skills. I enjoyed having the opportunity to present my arguments as part of the lawyering skills moot.
Having been chosen as best mooter for my group, I was then thrilled to be told that I had been chosen to participate in a moot in the Supreme Court in front of Lord Leggatt!
It was a pleasure to undertake a tour of Middle and Inner Temple, having lunch in Middle Temple hall. This was followed by the highlight and goal of the day – performing the moot in the Supreme Court! The moot itself was based on a public law problem involving a woman who had been evicted from an inn which was offering temporary accommodation. They had been contracted to do this in conjunction with the local government. The two grounds of appeal were firstly whether the inn was a public authority under the Human Rights Act, and secondly whether they had breached Article 8 rights in evicting the tenant. My arguments pertained to the first ground of appeal.
After having performed the moot, which was presented extremely well by all parties, we were given group and individual feedback from Supreme Court Justice Lord Leggatt, as well as an announcement of the winner of the moot. I was chosen by Lord Leggatt as the overall winner of the moot, and given extremely positive feedback all round, which is something I will never forget!’
I enjoyed the Mooting module but the true highlight was of course the Supreme Court moot! Everyone involved worked together well, communicating effectively and supporting one another with our submissions, as well as doing practice runs to prepare. I am incredibly grateful to Darren Weir for organising this and my team members!’
Second year Law LLB student Talis El Gohari, from Whitstable in Kent, is an aspiring barrister. She explains what the Mooting module involved this year:
‘The co-curricular module, led by Darren Weir, consisted of an overview of mooting, including the do’s and dont’s and some fun starter group exercises as an introduction to persuasive arguments. We then had to prepare a practice moot which we performed in the presence of an assigned moot mentor, who is a current student with experience of mooting.
Once we completed this practice round we were then given a choice of what area of law we wanted our moot to focus on. Our actual moot scenario was then provided and we were assigned our respective roles.
We delivered our submissions on an assigned date and time to legal professionals sitting as our judging panel.
Once finished, a judgment was delivered and the best mooter was chosen.
Further to the moot, we then had the opportunity to privately network with the judging panel.
The module was a fantastic experience and really gave a great overview of what it means to advocate and how best to present an argument both in written and oral respects.’
Talis adds: ‘The final at the Supreme Court was certainly not met without some nerves, however it was nothing short of fantastic and actually, I very much enjoyed the moot once I was delivering my speech. I found that I had good points to raise in relation to Lord Leggatt’s questions. His interventions were actually really helpful in understanding what real practice is like.
The finals moot at the Supreme Court is an extremely important towards my goal of becoming a barrister as it not only shows that I have completed the mooting module, but also that I excelled in it. These events and experiences that the University of Kent provide really are crucial for employability and I am glad that I participated. I would encourage every single law student, regardless of aspiration, to partake in the mooting extracurricular module as you will gain important advocacy skills and valuable experience which employers seek.’Law student Sofia Hardial reflects on the opportunity to visit two of the four Inns of Court on the day of the final:
‘During the trip we visited Middle Temple for lunch- which was lovely and something I would definitely recommend people do if they are interested in visiting the Inns of Court. We then visited Inner Temple for a tour and a talk. I found the talks we were given at both Inns to be crucial in understanding exactly what each Inns looks for when considering scholarship applications: how interviews at both are slightly different and that they prioritise slightly different things. After this we travelled to the Supreme Court for a tour followed by the moot. This was the most nerve-wracking part of the trip for me as I had been selected to perform the moot in front of Lord Leggatt.
Prior to being selected for the Supreme Court moot, I participated in the mooting co-curricular module during the Autumn term. I had taken part in the mock trial advocacy module the year before and found it to be such a fun experience that I knew I wanted to do more advocacy in the future. And so, when the opportunity came to participate in mooting, I signed up without hesitation. During the mooting module, we learnt exactly how to perform a moot- how to research a problem, the language required, the structure etc and then we were given a practice moot to perform in front of our moot mentors (students with mooting experience) who advised us how to improve. This was invaluable as we were learning from students who had been in the same position as us the year before. It was especially helpful for me as I was extremely nervous about performing my arguments on a complex legal problem and the potential questions I could be asked so running through a practice moot eased some of these concerns. For my actual moot on the module, I worked closely with the student on the opposing side, highlighting strengths and weaknesses in both our arguments so that we would be able to perform an interesting moot. On the day, there were many interventions and a very interesting question that I had not pre-empted but was asked to address during my right of reply. The mooting module is something I recommend everyone do. It is a lesson in thinking on your feet, adapting your arguments, finding weaknesses in others’ arguments and overall a challenge to yourself.
I was very excited to find out I had been chosen to take part in the moot finals at the Supreme Court in front of Lord Leggatt. The other students chosen to take part in the finals were all such fantastic advocates and working with them/learning from them was also an amazing opportunity in itself. The performance of the moot went by so quickly- adrenaline most definitely took over and though Lord Leggat asked questions that certainly fazed me, I knew the most important thing was to remain calm and answer to the best of my ability. The highlight of the entire trip for me was receiving feedback from Lord Leggatt, something I can now tell everyone about.
Overall, the experience itself was of course amazing, but I would consider the lessons I learnt from taking part just as important. This was definitely a lesson in challenging myself and doing something that terrified me. But, as a result getting the chance to improve my skills, and confidence. It also does not hurt being able to say I performed a moot in front of Lord Leggatt!’
Darren Weir, Senior Lecturer and Director of Lawyering Skills, congratulates all of the students who participated in the Mooting module this year. He says, ‘It was such a pleasure to train and nurture 40 law students in appellate advocacy skills. Some of those who were in the second year will get the chance to become ‘moot mentors’ and help the students in the mooting module next year. I look forward to working with them.’
