Law Students Take South Coast Mooting Title

27 March 2007

South Coast’s Mooting Champions - BU second year law students Luke Toomey and Sharlene Williams

BU second year law students Luke Toomey and Sharlene Williams are the South Coast’s Mooting Champions.

The pair beat off rivals from Portsmouth, Southampton Solent and Southampton Universities to take the title.

The competition, held at the University of Portsmouth, was sponsored by LexisNexis Butterworths.

Luke is studying for a BA (Hons) in Law, and Sharlene is working towards the BA (Hons) in Tax Law.

Working in teams, the students were challenged to test their skills in a moot (mock trial).

One team serves as leading and junior counsel for the appellants, and the other as leading and junior counsel for the respondents, although the 'mooters' may be judged as individuals or as a team.

Acting as advocates in a fictitious legal appeal case before a judge, Luke, as Leading Counsel, and Sharlene, as Junior Counsel, proved to be an impressive pair.

They not only won the competition but in both cases won the moots on legal points as well.

Their win was all the more impressive as the subject matter of the moots (Rylands v Fletcher) had not at the time of the competition been covered on the tort course.

The students also did not know whether they would represent appellant or respondent until the morning of the moot, and had to go prepared to argue either side.