News Item

Each year the NZ Law Foundation assists student mooting teams’ participation in competitions by funding their travel costs. It has supported the following four key mooting competitions annually for almost 20 years.

Philip C Jessup International Law Moot

The Jessup Moot is known as the largest, oldest and most prestigious competition of its kind. $30,000 is awarded annually to cover travel for a 4-person university team and 2 coaches to travel to the competition in Washington DC in March/April each year. The team earns the right to represent NZ by winning the national inter-university mooting competitions. This year’s team came from Victoria University of Wellington and was made up of Alexandra Sinclair, Campbell Herbert, Ella Watt and James Young-Drew. Their coach was David Bullock. This was the 54th year for the moot, and over 630 teams from 90 countries took part. The New Zealand team did well to make it into the elimination round group of 32 teams, only to be knocked out of the competition when they narrowly lost their next moot against Mexico.

Brown-Mosten International Client Consultation Competition

$15,000 is awarded annually to cover travel for a 2-person team and a coach to travel to the country hosting the event. This year the competition was held in Glasgow in April and 19 countries participated. New Zealand teams have won this competition 5 times, and this year they narrowly missed the first prize and took second. We were represented by national competition winners Adele Taylor and Elisabeth Perham from Victoria University of Wellington. Selene Mize of University of Otago was their coach. New Zealand has been asked to consider hosting the 2015 or 2016 competition.

International Negotiation Competition

$15,000 is awarded annually to cover travel for a 2-person team and a coach to travel to the country hosting the event. This year a University of Waikato team won the national competition and went on to represent NZ at the competition held at Chapman University in Orange, California where 19 countries took part. Darren Adams and Rob Davies made up the NZ team and won all of their negotiations but were unfortunate in having their final opponents walk out of the negotiation, significantly upset their ranking. NZ teams have won this competition twice in the past.

University of Waikato news article

New Zealand Law Foundation National Family Law Moot

$12,000 is awarded annually to cover travel and competition costs for teams from all NZ law schools to compete in Dunedin. The law schools of Auckland, Victoria, Canterbury and Otago universities participated in the 2013 competition in August. This year the event’s Mahony Cup was won by Otago University students Jayne O’Connell and Matthew Mortimer.

University of Otago news article

Mooting competition feedback from students and coaches:

“Provides a valuable opportunity to meet law-students, judges and lawyers from around the world.”

“Law Foundation funding meant we could focus on the competition and not be concerned about how we would get there.”

“The competition is the best practice for appearing as a lawyer in court.”

“The research and preparation behind the competition was invaluable. We learned new topics reviewed old ones.”

“We learned effective ways to communicate with and advise clients.”

“We received valuable constructive feedback.”

“Participating in the competition took the team to a whole new level.”

“We were able to practice and learn from senior practitioners and judges.”

“The competition provided strategies for use in current employment.”

“We received valuable support from Jessup alumni who gave their time and expertise to help our team.”

“The competition provided practice at conducting rigorous legal research, and dealing with highly complex and difficult problems in contemporary international law.”

“The National Family Law Moot is a valuable and rare opportunity to display and test advocacy in the family law context.”