Credit: Steve and Sara

A City team of Zak Kell and myself took part in the Inner Temple IV moot on Sunday 2nd February. The problem was, as usual, on a topic we had yet to encounter on the GDL course. It was all about positive covenants. Do they 'run' with land? Can they bind successors in title? Are equitable remedies available to enforce them? Alas, we still don't know.

But we argued either way and got to the quarter-finals. There we encountered two more City folk in Alex Harding and George Harnett, representing Lincoln's Inn. Those being generous to Zak and me might concede that we did not have the law on our side, but Alex and George mooted masterfully as respondent's counsel to dispose of our attempts to worm around previous House of Lords authority.

Indeed, masterful they must have been because Alex and George duly went on to take the crown! Congratulations to them! Crown is almost apt, too: the trophy was a majestic work of gold and silver, a gift of the King of Bhutan (an honorary Bencher). Alex's and George's names will go up on a roster in Inner Temple hall, next to a case containing the statue. Both will be well worth a quick peek.

PS Our thanks to Emily for arranging, and to Elliot Schatzberger for giving up a Sunday to be a judge.

Thanks to Douglas James, a GDL student at The City Law School.

Ali, Anna, Howard and Niall

A team of students from The City Law School has won the European Human Rights Moot Court Competition. Ali Nihat, Niall Coghlan and Howard Leithead, who are studying the Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) at City University London and Anna Dannreuther of the University of Law, beat leading teams from across Europe.

They triumphed in the grand final against opponents from the University of Athens and in front of a jury of 9 human rights law experts. The City team will be awarded the Council of Europe Prize; a month-long traineeship at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Clare Brown, Lecturer in Law at City University London and Barrister at 2 Temple Gardens, is the team's coach. She comments:

"The quality of the advocacy has been superb and it has been a privilege to sit behind the team from City. Their submissions and responses to questions have been of an exceptionally high standard. They are deserving winners of both this prestigious title and the opportunity to train at the European Court of Human Rights".

The moot, which is a simulation of a court trial, began in August when teams were asked to examine a fictitious case. Seventy-two teams from 29 European countries drafted written submissions for the case which concerned defamation and hate speech in relation to freedom of expression and media freedom.

Sixteen teams were then selected to travel to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to plead the case during the final rounds. The team from The City Law School excelled in the closing stages of the competition, beating strong opposition from Kaplan in the semi-finals.

Speaking of behalf of The City Law School team, Howard Leithead commented:

"We would like to thank The City Law School for its support during this competition. Clare Brown has been a fantastic coach and we are grateful for the substantial contribution that City made towards our expenses. The four of us met at City on the GDL course and we have derived considerable benefit from having been students there.

He continued: "In the European Finals we successfully competed against teams from the UK, including those from Kaplan and BPP Law Schools, as well as against teams from other European countries. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to moot in the European Court of Human Rights and we have learnt a great deal from the experience".

The competition is organised by the European Law Students Association (ELSA) with the support of the Council of Europe. It is designed to help students understand the principles and implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights. It is open to all law students in ELSA Member Countries as well as Council of Europe Member Countries. The Council of Europe has published the story on their website too.

The City Law School has an exceptionally strong record of mooting success. Students won several prestigious national and international competitions in 2013. BPTC students Matthew Fraser and Jelia Sane took the top prize at the Human Rights Lawyers Association Judicial Review Mooting Competition in April. Matthew Sellwood and Daniele Selmi took part in the 13th Commonwealth Student Moot held in South Africa. It was the first time in ten years that a team representing the UK had triumphed. You can read blog posts from the students at the Commonwealth Moot via Lawbore.

This year, The City Law School unveiled its first ever Senior Moot, adding to its existing roster of internal competitions. Open to all postgraduates on the School's professional programmes, it is sponsored by property experts Savills and carries a total prize fund of £2,000.

Three GDL students from City Law School, Hannah Gibbs, David Green and Natasha Jackson along with Gus Baker represented Inner Temple in the national qualifying rounds of the prestigious Telders International Law Moot Court Competition 2014.

They were coached by a City Law School BPTC student, Sajid Suleman. The team beat off fierce competition to become the national champions and they will now represent England in the international rounds held at the International Court of Justice, The Hague in April 2014.

Telders concerns a fictional dispute between two states which is heard before the United Nations most important legal organ, the International Court of Justice. The moot problem this year concerned a dispute over the legality of an armed rescue mission, the immunity of a government official and alleged breach of a mutual assistance treaty. The competition entails lengthy written submissions in the form of memorials and oral submissions.

The team worked very hard over several months in order to prepare for the competition. They now have their eyes set on becoming international champions.

Grace, Nicholas, Judge Cryan, Sabrina and Ali

After three intense preliminary rounds, the finals of the City Scholars Mooting Competition were held on March 12, 2014 at the Supreme Court and adjudicated by His Honour Judge Donald Cryan (Clerkenwell and Shoreditch County Court, High Court Family Division, Reader Elect of the Inner Temple).

An enthusiastic audience of City Law School students attended the event and supported the four finalists:

Grace Allen (GELLB1) (Senior Appellant)
Ali Hafeez (LLB1) (Senior Respondent)
Nicholas Murphy (GELLB2) (Junior Appellant)
Sabrina Samis (GELLB1) (Junior Respondent)

After the presentation of oral arguments by the appellant and respondent teams, Judge Cryan elucidated the intricate legal issues in contention under the law of contracts and spoke about the art of advocacy.
He commended all mooters on the quality of their performance, including apt submissions in respect of a complex case and a very good reaction to the judge’s demanding questioning.

While sharing with the audience the difficulty of deciding between four outstanding finalists, the judge ultimately designated Nicholas Murphy as the winner of the competition. He congratulated Nicholas on his ability to persuasively argue what the judge deemed to be the losing case in the scenario at hand and to put forward an effective response to the questioning.

Winner Nicholas being congratulated by Judge Cryan

He also praised the eloquence of the most junior participant, Ali Hafeez, whose first-year undergraduate status had not been noticeable in his performance.

Here's what our winner Nicholas had to say:

Wednesday’s final was quite simply, a great night, and it felt very appropriate to end three very competitive rounds of mooting in Court 1 of the nation’s highest court. While nerves were certainly running high before the evening began (soothed with several litres of milky tea), once we entered Court 1 and got settled, everything very quickly calmed down as we focussed on our submissions. The final was judged by HH Judge Donald Cryan, a bulwark of mooting at City, who instantly showed his judicial talons by asking us some challenging and probing questions about our arguments – putting each of us on the back-foot!

However, the best part of the evening was being able to have a legal dust-up with friends, without some of the ‘traditional’ rivalry of mooting competitions. Because of this, it was a real surprise to be named the winner in light of such sustained and able competition. I really have to thank HHJ Cryan, Catherine Elliott and Carmen Draghici for such a fantastic experience.

The City Law School is delighted to offer this exceptional mooting opportunity to its students and is extremely proud of their achievements. The City Scholars Moot is open to all undergraduate and postgraduate LLB students as well as those on LLM courses, and is run by Senior Lecturer Catherine Elliott. Many thanks to Judge Cryan for his support of this moot, and to Pearson for their sponsorship.

On Friday 14th February Oliver Winters and I made our way down to Bath. It was not, however, a romantic valentines weekend away but a trip to compete in the Bristol Inter-Varsity Moot. Other than a brief interval for dinner with my parents we would spend that evening locked away in a spare room at my home, applying ourselves to the ‘finishing touches’ of preparation for the moot. On arriving the next morning we felt we had an early advantage in that other teams had travelled from as far as Essex, navigating London and the flooded south of England on the way. The minor commute from Bath gifted us with valuable hours of extra sleep.

A full energy tank was certainly needed for this moot. The competition would run its course in just one day. Each of the fourteen competing universities would partake in two rounds in the morning, following which the highest four scoring teams would proceed to the semi-finals after lunch. The finalists would then thrash it out in front of a panel of judges including Lord Justice Toulson and two barristers from Bristol’s St John’s Chambers, with a mini at the said chambers as spoils for the winners. With Toulson having first taken tenancy in Bristol, later to be Presiding Judge on the Western Circuit (1997 to 2002), the competition was a thoroughbred West Country affair. The impressive Wills Memorial Building of Bristol University was an excellent spot for it. Having thought we had done well to get there on time, Oli and I would later be humbled to discover the whole event, professionally done from start to finish, was put on by a handful of Law undergraduates!

The moot problem concerned actions in the torts of negligence and battery. Both were brought by a chap called Tony against his friend John. They had been out drinking together and in order to get home broke into and stole a car. John drove, and thanks to his intoxication duly crashed. This caused Tony head injuries that led to his becoming increasingly aggressive and violent following the accident. Unfortunately, Tony subsequently got into a dispute with John over the cause of the accident. A fight ensued in which Tony suffered further injuries! Tony brought actions against John in negligence and battery respectively for these two injurious incidents.

We met the case on its arrival at the Supreme Court, both grounds of appeal having been dismissed by the Court of Appeal. This set the stage for recourse to arguments of policy that would be pertinent to arguments on both grounds. A further feature of the competition was that each team had to prepare both sides of the appeals. Our first two rounds would bring us up against some good opposition in the form of the Open University and the University of Exeter.
Oli led our effort with unsurprising strength. He dealt with the first ground of appeal, that Tony’s claim in negligence was not barred because of his and John’s illegal act in stealing the car. He summarised:

This involved the doctrine of ex turpi causa non oritur actio (a phrase which my opponent in the Semi-final took great relish in repeating). In the first round we were appellants; I attempted to argue that for the doctrine to apply the illegal act committed had to be causative of the damage claimed for, relying on authorities such as Joyce v B’Brien (2013) and Vellino v Chief Constable for Greater Manchester Police (2001). I aimed to dispel the opposing argument based on the idea that the public would not wear a criminal succeeding in a personal injury claim for his injuries in the course of his criminal enterprise.

As respondent in the second round I attempted to advance three arguments; that in considering whether the damaged was caused by the illegal act, the court should take account of all the circumstances and not the negligent act in isolation (Saunders v Edwards), that a joint course of criminal conduct might prima facie entail a foreseeably increased risk of injury (Joyce v O’ Brien) [2013] EWCA Civ 546, and that finally the seriousness of their crime and danger to the public inherent in their joint course of conduct should be taken into account in deciding whether the doctrine applied (Pitts v Hunt [1990] EWCA Civ 17, cf. Weir v Wiper).

Oliver and David - mooting in Bristol.

Following Oli, I dealt with the second ground of appeal; a cross-appeal, in fact, from John against the first instance ruling that he had committed battery against Tony in the course of a fight which Tony had provoked, and that as a result of the decision in Pritchard v Co-operative Group Ltd [2011] EWCA Civ 329 the defence of contributory negligence is not available as a defence to an intentional tort.

I found that the law favoured the respondent to the cross-appeal as it seemed quite clear from a strong line of case law, most recently and succinctly set out in Pritchard, that the defence of contributory negligence is only available to a defendant where, but for the Law Reform Act 1945 (which significantly altered the nature of the defence of contributory negligence, and before which contributory negligence was only a defence at common law), it would have arisen as such at common law. In the instance of intentional torts including trespass to the person, and thus battery, the defence did not arise at common law pre the Act and therefore did not stand as an available defence in this instance.

In the first round I delivered this argument for the respondent comfortably. I was weaker in our second round acting for the cross-appellant. It seemed clear that the cross-appeal should fail because contributory negligence was not available as a defence to the tort of battery at common law and therefore not available here. There was some case law that enabled argument to the contrary, but this was to rely primarily on the obiter of Lord Denning (always a precarious place to be) and required some awkward fact-distinguishing in order to make the case that contributory negligence might be available on these facts where the claimant’s contribution to the tort was as slight as Tony engaging in a dispute with John. There was no precedent, not even foundation in obiter, for the availability of contributory negligence on such thin grounds with respect to the claimant’s fault.

Somewhat to our surprise we found out at lunch that we had made it to the semi-final. Here we would meet BPP in front of a panel of three judges, two of which were barristers of St John’s Chambers, one a Bristol-based solicitor.

In the semi-final Oli was to appear as appellant (me as respondent to the cross appeal). Back to Oli:

This was the more difficult case to make in theory but sometimes the pressure of being on the wrong side of the law can lead you to a better argument. Unfortunately I was not sure I had one in this case! The semi-final started well enough, seeing as we had had an opportunity already to make these arguments in the first round.

However I found I hit a rather large and insurmountable road block - for all the attempt to show the law was not as clear cut as the respondents might wish to make out, the facts were still rather hard to construe in our favour. Could the fact that the car was stolen really be separated from John’s negligence in crashing the car? More so, how could Tony claim to have no causal responsibility for his injury? It may not be the case that if the car was not stolen they would not have crashed - but the act of theft in which Tony participated was pretty important in turning John from a drunk to a drunk driver. Needless to say the panel judges were quick to pounce on my sophistry, and I felt that I had not really hit the nail on the head when it came to the end of his submissions.

My opponent from BPP began by attempting to lay out the progress of ex turpi causa doctrine from its origins to the present day - however the judges intervened to say that (sadly) we did not have quite enough time for this exercise. However he continued by making a strong argument that the court should not indemnify Tony against such conduct, and relied on authorities such as Gray v Thames Trains [2009] UKHL 33 to put the point that Tony could not recover for injuries as a result of illegal conduct for which he was responsible.

Though I was in my preferred position of appearing for the respondent to the cross-appeal, closer scrutiny from the panel in the semi-final would reveal a flaw in my argument that I had not considered beforehand, and failed to deal with particularly well in the moment. The judges rightly questioned me on the construal of the Law Reform Act 1945 by Lord Justice Aikens in Pritchard upon which I had relied. It was clear, on closer consideration, that Aikens had construed the Act as if there were policy guiding him where in fact there was no such thing. The Act provides that the kind of faults capable of constituting contributory negligence are, ‘negligence, breach of statutory duty or other act or omission which gives rise to a liability in tort or would, apart from this Act, give rise to the defence of contributory negligence’. There was no reason for Aikens, nor the case law he endorsed, to attach as they did a further stipulation to this provision; that fault on the part of the claimant could only be found capable of raising contributory negligence as an available defence where it had been so at common law before the inauguration of the Law Reform Act 1945.

In doing so he was following the strongest and most definite line of cases on the issue since the Act had come into force, starting with Reeves v Commissioner of the Police of the Metropolis [1999] UKHL 35. However, this construal seemed as though there was policy guiding it towards being akin to the Criminal Law, which refuses to allow for an equivalent defence of contributory negligence for any criminal act (except where murder might become manslaughter where there has been a ‘loss of self control’). Yet there was no such policy. Rather, Aikens was following, and indeed consolidating, a mistaken line of authority where, in fact, the statute seems to allow for the fault of a claimant, notwithstanding the context of an intentional tort, to constitute contributory negligence for the purposes of the Act. Though I was able to comment that the supplication to the Act endorsed by Aikens made good sense, not least in light of its semblance to the sensible approach of the Criminal Law on contributory negligence, the judges had exposed a flaw in the legal reasoning behind it which I was not able to justify in the moment.

Sadly our efforts did not prove enough to put us into the final, but we felt we came up against some strong and deserving winners in the form of BPP. They went on to compete in the final against the hosts, Bristol, who were the overall victors at the end of the day. I must admit by the time of the final, which we had been invited to spectate, Oli and I were in the pub toasting ourselves and our moderate success, and of course commiserating with each other with respect to the 2014 Valentine’s Day that, for us, never was. There is always next year!

Big thanks to David and Oliver for representing City at this moot and for sharing their experiences with Lawbore. David and Oli are current students on the GDL programme at City.

The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is intimidatingly enormous and enormously intimidating. Fifty judicial seats, arranged in a parabola, surround a grand carpet with Europe’s yellow stars; perhaps ten metres away, at the focal point of the parabola, sit the advocates. On 26 February 2014, Ali Nihat, Anna Dannreuther, Howard Leithead and I faced nine judges from that focal point.

Ali Nihat stands to plead in the Grand Chamber

The case: November 2013

It began with a case concerning sanctions taken by the imaginary state of Evrylia against a fictional journalist, Mr Adam, for online defamation and hate speech. The Court held jurisdiction primarily through Article 10 (free expression). The subject is highly topical; whilst the Court has begun to flesh out the law on internet speech in Perrin v UK, Yildirim v Turkey and Delfi AS v Estonia, substantial legal gaps remain.

For instance, if an article is hosted in California by someone living in England, does one download in France give France jurisdiction over that article? What if this leads to libel tourism, whereby litigants pursue action in the jurisdiction in which they are likely to get the best result? Who is liable for unlawful comments on the article? How far can states go in blocking those comments? And — as a current Council of Europe campaign asks — how can online hate speech be proportionately prevented?

With an English law graduate's somewhat sketchy understanding of European human rights law, we set about answering these questions.

Our first test was the written round. Forty pages of submissions were required of us: twenty for Evrylia, twenty for Mr Adam. This was no skeleton argument. Like much continental law, proceedings are primarily paper-based; consequently, written submissions involve extended argument, full paragraphs and often the citation of academia. And, reflecting their importance, the cut was brutal: of 72 teams across Europe, only 16 would survive to the European Finals in Strasbourg.

After a fortnight’s research, drafting and heated debate (should a bibliography be in one column or two?), our submissions were submitted at the stroke of midnight in mid-November. Shortly after the New Year, we learned we had escaped the cut. We would plead in the Court itself at the end of February.

Pleading orally: 23-25 February 2014

After a civilised reception in the Irish Ambassador’s residence in Strasbourg on Sunday night (at which Guinness was, naturally served), we arrived at the Court one brisk Monday morning. Textbooks tend to feature unflattering pictures of the famously faceless Court. In person, it is somewhat prettier. Its striking glassy interior, particularly, was a welcome contrast to the glamour of a Sunday practising pleading in our hostel’s ill-lit fire escape.

In the preliminary rounds, we represented Mr Adam against Romania’s Alexandru Ioan Cuza University and, the next day, Evrylia against Serbia’s NIS University. Each side had half an hour to present their argument, followed by five minutes’ rebuttal; unadventurously, we divided our time equally between the defamation (Howard for Mr Adam, Ali for Evrylia) and hate speech (myself for both) points.

Reflecting the stress on written submissions, oral pleadings in European moots contrast with English ones. With 30 minutes to convey twenty pages’ worth of law, they are much more of a survey of your argument than an exposition. Where English mooters say, ‘If I could refer Your Ladyship to paragraph 14 of Axel Springer v Germany, reported in the…’, European ones prefer, ‘It is clear from the Axel Springer case-law that…’

This is made tricky in three ways. First, unlike real European proceedings, the moot judges lack your written submissions. Combining coherence and complexity of argument by mouth alone is extremely challenging, and most teams opted for fully-scripted speeches. Second, conveying this in such strictly-limited time, particularly with two speakers, requires great attention and restraint. Third, a particularly interventionist set of judges threaten to destabilise both your coherence and timing.

Despite this greater emphasis on scripting, successful improvisation remained the ultimate way to win, just as in national moots. As Applicant, our pleadings were bombarded by judicial intervention, rupturing our planned structure. As Respondent, we had to summon rebuttals on five further ECHR articles, including fair trial rights and the right to property. Having handled the first moot’s interventions well enough to re-impose some structure, and persuaded the judges of the second that the real issues were under Article 10 alone, we progressed to the semi-finals.

That night, the first social took place at a local brewery. Alarmed that Strasbourgeois’ idea of socialising including playing Yahtzee at the dinner table (with the fun bonus game of “look for the dropped dice”), we reluctantly left our new friends for our old case. Anna led our last-minute research into points raised in the preliminaries. We would represent Mr Adam, with the first shot at 9.30am the next day. Our opponents would be Kaplan Law School.

The Semi-Finals and Grand Final, 26 February 2014

Five ECtHR lawyers now faced us, in an actual courtroom, as judges. Their questions were rarer, but more penetrating; weak links in arguments were sniffed out, questioned, and hounded if incompletely answered. After excellent speeches from both sides, with particular strength in Howard and our opponent’s rebuttals, we discovered we had 90 minutes to prepare for the Grand Final.

And so we return to the beginning. The Grand Final in the Grand Chamber.

Our Athenian opponents opened for the Applicant. Their presentation was impressive, running like a curiously precise steamroller (‘we will spend twelve minutes on defamation; eighteen on hate speech’): near enough every point that could be made for Mr Adam was made, without a millisecond’s respite. Never having fully escaped the English moot style of advocacy, we sought to speak more naturally: pausing, for effect.

Opening our case, Ali pressed the specifics of their defamation argument, arguing that they had failed to engage with the facts. The Applicant had argued that only the country of original publication should have jurisdiction over a defamatory article, because that is where the harmful event — the publication — occurs. Improvising, Ali responded with a striking metaphor: ‘if I fire a gun from Germany, and the bullet injures someone in France, is the damage really caused in Germany?’ Closing it, I stole the keys from their steamroller by arguing the hate speech case was inadmissible. Alternatively, I contended Evrylia’s sanctions were lawful and proportionate. Shorter than a football match, the Grand Final ended.

Touring the Palace of Europe with the other teams, the result was too close to call: some clearly felt we needed pre-emptive comforting (‘It is very hard to be the Respondent…’); others felt our style and close engagement with the Applicant’s argument had won.

After two hours’ deliberation, the presiding judge announced that the latter were right. We had won.

Howard, Anna, Niall and Ali - winners of the European Human Rights Moot in Strasbourg.

Postscript

Intimidating the chamber may be, but what does it all mean? The ECtHR is seen as a miracle-worker by some of Europe’s citizens; the placards we saw outside, pleading for its attention, and even rogue men shouting at the Court, ‘Give me back my video camera! This is not human rights!’ attested to this. It is no miracle-worker; but, as we saw through attacking and defending a government’s actions in Strasbourg, it is an important check on state power. At a time of considerable constitutional and political tension between the UK and the Court, it is heartening that five English teams reached the European finals. Just as heartening is the way that this moot transcends our parochial national boundaries and brings together future lawyers from across Europe.

We would like to thank Clare Brown for her fantastic coaching and City Law School for its substantial contribution towards our expenses.

Thanks to Niall for giving us a glimpse into their few days in Strasbourg at the European Human Rights Moot Court Competition, organised by ELSA in co-operation with the Council of Europe. Read the CityNews piece about Niall, Howard, Ali and Anna's success.

Moot judge Derek Wood QC

The worlds of law and property came together on Friday evening with the much-anticipated Senior Moot Final, held at in a fittingly splendid West End venue - courtesy of the moot's sponsor Savills, the international property experts.

We were welcomed to Savills' West End Headquarters by director Clive Beer and were keen to see the four finalists of this inaugural competition - Martin Horne, Andrew Lomas, Zachary Kell and Darryl Hutcheon, present their arguments to judge Derek Wood CBE QC. Derek Wood, of Falcon Chambers, will be known to many as a property barrister of international repute, and one with long and distinguished experience as an arbitrator. He is also the Director of Advocacy at the Middle Temple, training the next generation of Inn students.

The Senior Moot was launched this year as a way of bringing together students on our postgraduate law programmes (GDL, Graduate Entry LLB, LPC and BPTC) - with all places for the competition snapped up within 52 minutes of release. The moot problem concerns an imaginary lottery and the failure of one of the parties to the dispute to purchase what, with the benefit of hindsight, would have been the winning ticket.

Finalists: Zachary, Martin, Andrew & Darryl

Martin and Zachary are currently on the GDL course at City, with Andrew and Darryl just completing their year on the BPTC. Joanne Moss, Lecturer at The City Law School, who conceived this moot sums up the evening:

"Our distinguished Moot Judge grilled the Finalists and expressed his compliments and encouragement as to the high standards they each achieved. Finalists each winning £250 were Martin Horne and Andrew Lomas; the runner-up in the competition, taking a £500 prize, was Zachary Kell.

The 2014 Senior Moot Champion is Darryl Hutcheon. He carried off the trophy and the top award of £1,000, following the submission of a greatly commended skeleton argument and a succinct and devastating oral argument. He also takes with him the congratulations and good wishes of the entire City Law School for his outstanding achievement".

See the City website for more insight into the evening.

Clive Beer (Savills) and Joanne Moss (City Law School)

Moot Winner Darryl Hutcheon

Joanne Moss, Derek Wood & Emily Allbon

Thanks go to the photographer Alice Moss

The Senior Moot 2015 has now been launched with a prize pot of £2000 - £1000 to the winner, £500 for the runner-up and £250 for each of the other two finalists.

The Finals and reception will be held at the West End Headquarters of Savills in London on Thursday 7 May 2015 and our distinguished moot judges will be Professor Jeremy Horder of the London School of Economics, and Professor Peter Hungerford-Welch of the City Law School.

The Senior Moot 2015 is a cross-school competition open to postgraduates on the following programmes: BPTC, GDL, LPC and GE LLB. It is available to all students on any of those courses (including any part-timers on the BPTC).

There are 64 places available, of which a small number (called Prestige places) will be pre-allocated on an entirely discretionary basis by Moot Director Joanne Moss. These pre-allocated places are to seed the Moot with excellence.

Important deadlines as follows:

28th November by 6pm - email application for a Prestige Place to Joanne Moss (from your City email address), with a subject line of PRESTIGE PLACE REQUEST.

The email should contain no more than 150 words in which you should list your mooting achievements. Only a truly outstanding record of winning moot competitions is realistically worth submitting - enthusiasm is insufficient.  You will be notified if you are successful but applications will not be acknowledged.

18th December at 1pm - sign-up will open on Moodle. Places are likely to go VERY QUICKLY (last year within 52 mins) so be ready.

We are delighted to thank our sponsors, Savills, for their generous support and tremendous hospitality in their magnificent Headquarters. It is a very great pleasure to acknowledge their second sponsorship year.

Bring it on!

The Chambers of Francis Taylor Building have just launched their Kingsland Cup Moot Competition for this year.

Open to teams of undergraduate, GDL and BPTC students, the Kingsland Cup includes moots spanning European, Environmental and Public law and will take place over three rounds. The first round sees entrants judged on their skeleton arguments, with the top-scoring teams appearing at the semi-final in London before a distinguished high court judge in a full mock court in the New Year.

Last year’s Grand Final was held in Courtroom 1 at the Supreme Court, and was judged by Justice of the Supreme Court, Lord Carnwath of Notting Hill. Comparable arrangements for this year’s final are to be confirmed in the very near future.

To get going on this you need to:

1. Find a friend to be your moot partner
2. Download the FTB Mooting Competition Guide
3. Get working on the two skeleton arguments required for entry
4. Download and fill in the entry form, before sending it off, along with your skeleton arguments to kingslandcup@ftb.eu.com. Deadline = 4pm Friday 19th December 2014.
5. Cross fingers!

Thursday 18th December 2014 will be a big day for City's 800 postgraduate law students - sign up for the 48 remaining places in the Senior Moot kicks off at 1pm.

The Senior Moot was launched last year, and is generously sponsored by Savills, one of the world's largest real estate firms. Unique to this year's competition is that 14 'Prestige Places' have been created - allowing those experienced and successful mooters to apply for one of these reserved places.

Very well done to all those securing a Prestige Place - the process was very competitive indeed. The chosen students represent outstanding talent and there will be one seeded into every Round One match. Collectively the Prestige Places show winners of major international and national competitions. Many are multiple championship winners. They include international moot problem setters and coaches of elite teams. There is an immense spread of achievement and a terrific fund of experience across England, Wales, Scotland, various European countries, East Asia and the United States.

Chloe Bell, Daniel Black, Iwona Boesche, Mathias Cheung, Jodie Drummond, Harihara Gomathinayagam, David Green, Martin Horne, Thomas Jones, Zachary Kell, Michael Levenstein, James Mallon, Guy Oliff-Cooper, Richard Wayman.

So delighted are we with the anticipated quality of this year’s competition that a decision has been taken to enhance the prizes. Accordingly, the new prize fund this year is £3,000 to be divided £1,650 for the winner, £750 for the runner-up and £300 for each of the other two finalists.

The finals will be held on 7 May at the London West End headquarters of Savills. The distinguished Finals Judges are Professor Jeremy Horder of the London School of Economics and Professor Peter Hungerford-Welch of The City Law School. This should bring back fond memories: 32 years ago they were the winning moot team for the national Observer Trophy.

GELLB, GDL, LPC and BPTC students - get ready for 1pm tomorrow. Sign up via the Senior Moot module on Moodle - places are likely to go very quickly.

Read more about The Senior Moot on CityNews.

The Times has teamed up with 2TG to run a moot later this year. Aspects that will most interest you as follows:

• First prize is £4000!
• All four finalists will receive assessed mini-pupillages at 2TG.
• There is no cap on the number of entrants from any one university...so all of you can give it a go.

Take a look at the moot website (where you can register your interest), or see flyer for full details.

The City Law School is pleased to confirm the names of those proceeding to Round Two of the Senior Moot later in the year. The sixteen semi-finalists are headed into a tough battle to survive into the Finals in May.

Matthew Gillett, Michael Levenstein & Matthias Cheung.

Matt Henderson
Martin Horne
Chloe Bell
Mark Galtrey
Jonathan Metzer
James Garnier
Sophia Stapleton
Edward Blakeney
Iwona Boesche
Thomas Jones
Richard Wayman
Samuel Parsons
Zachary Kell
Michael Levenstein
Katherine Geddes
Guy Olliff-Cooper

The spectator winning the celebratory bottle of champagne was Jessica Gray, the prize being randomly allocated from amongst the visitors.

Thank you to all the Senior Moot participants and followers for their support and interest!

James Mellon, Paul Caira, Katharine Geddes & Emily Moore.

Martin Horne and Raphael Gray

Jodie Drummond & Michael Levenstein

On Saturday, 21 February 2015, Lincoln's Inn hosted the Final Round of the national Inter-BPTC Moot Competition, pitting Bar students from across the country against each other in a series of knock-out rounds in which competitors were required to take alternating sides of the same problem. Competitors were selected on the basis of a preliminary moot competition held late last year, in which the highest scorers represented their schools. The case in question was heard before the Court of Appeal and involved what remedies should follow from a commercial contractual dispute--namely, should a party who deliberately breaches his obligations to make a larger profit with a third party be liable to disgorge his ill-gotten profits to an aggrieved claimant?

Each round was decided by judges and barrister members of the Inn, and each student team represented their respective BPTC provider. City Law School, represented by Michael Levenstein and Jodie Drummond, successfully appealed that a claimant should be able to recover both the cost of reinstatement and/or account of profits where a deliberate breach in a construction contract occurred by a specialist renovator. In so doing, they defeated the Respondent ably represented by Cardiff Law School, to make their mark--literally--on this year's IPMC Shield.

Alex and Clare in action in Belfast

A last minute drop-out, 48 hours preparation, an unexpected flight to Belfast, a score miscount that saw the City team out and back into the competition, a close-fought semi-final – the first ‘JustCite Annual UK and Ireland National Mooting Competition’ was certainly a memorable competition for the City University pair!

During a break in our last equity and trusts lecture I received an email from Emily Allbon, City’s mooting director, simply stating “????!!!! Is this too late?”

A team had dropped out of the ‘JustCite Annual UK and Ireland National Mooting Competition’ organised by Queen’s University Belfast and so began a whirlwind of last minute preparation to take up our reserve place and catch up with the other teams who had been preparing for three weeks.

My moot partner, Alex Bennie, and I received the moot problem with 48 hours to go before the full-day mooting competition on Saturday 28^th March. The fascinating problem closely mirrored the Strasbourg Court’s January 2014 judgment in Jones v UK [2014] ECHR 32 . An innocent citizen D’Alio of the fictional European nation of Orestia visited the non-European Ruritania when he was arrested by the police on suspicion of subversion. Two weeks of torture ensued, before the citizen was allowed to return home. Two years later the Ruritanian foreign minister who had supervised the torture visited Orestia for medical treatment, and D’Alio immediately instigated civil proceedings in the Orestian courts.

Moot teams prepared both sides of the problem, ready to oscillate between advocating for a progressive attitude to Article 6 rights in the context of jus cogens/Article 3 violations, and defending the respondent government’s adherence to absolute state immunity rules. In order to argue the problem effectively, mooting pairs had to draw upon domestic, European, and international jurisprudence, which took us well off the familiar territory of our GDL syllabus!

The competition was judged by Irish barristers, including multiple silks and senior Bar Council Panel members. Due to last minute team cancellations the first round was designated a practice round, during which we were put through our paces by an excellent BPP team. Then it was on to the competition proper mooting against Liverpool John Moores University.

A score miscount led us to believe we had been knocked out of the competition in the first round and over lunch we hatched plans for a relaxing afternoon in the botanical garden across the road. However, thankfully, the mathematical error was noticed and we were back in the competition with only 10mins before our next moot. The second round was against a pair from Nottingham Trent University and a very interventionist judge making oral submissions both challenging and stimulating. Nottingham Trent put in a strong performance, however we had accurately anticipated their arguments, and surprised them in our rebuttal by referring the judge to a case in their bundle that was not included in our own written submissions.

The semi-final was against Queen’s University, and before a panel of three judges. It was a closely fought moot, and when returning to the chamber for judgement we couldn’t predict who was going to succeed.  However, unfortunately for us, the home team won a place in the final defeating us by the galling razor-thin margin of one point (out of one hundred).

Queen’s University gave an excellent performance in the final; honing the arguments they pitted against us in the semi-finals, but were pipped to victory by a second BPP team who persuaded the panel to prioritise the protection of individual human rights above state immunity rules.

After a long day’s mooting Alex and I experienced the famous Northern Irish hospitality with a three-course dinner, and evening listening to live music in the beautiful cathedral quarter of Belfast.

All in all, it was an excellently organised competition that will no doubt thrive as an annual fixture on the mooting calendar! Of course, while it is always disappointing not to make the finals of a competition, Alex and I are pleased to get City to the semi-finals given how little time we had to prepare. Thank you very much to City University and, in particular, Emily Allbon for all the hard work at the eleventh hour to get us to Belfast!

Thanks to Clare for sharing their experiences of this moot. We are very proud of the amazing efforts of both her and Alex in almost being in the final after just 48hrs of preparation - incredible performances for 2 students who have only been studying law since September!

Junior Counsel of winning team Canada, addressing the judges

The Commonwealth Moot 2015 held in Glasgow in April was won by Canada, after a close and hard-fought battle in the Finals against Australia. Two City Law School students, Matthew Sellwood and Daniele Selmi won this competition in Cape Town, the last time the Commonwealth Moot took place two years ago [read Matthew and Daniele's account of the thrilling final]. We extend our congratulations to this year’s outstanding winners, and commend the high standards and enthusiasm displayed by all participants during the chase for victory.

The semi-finals also featured strong performances from South Africa (beaten by Canada), and from India (beaten by Australia)

For all the competitors, each personal performance was something worked for and practised for many hours and over months of effort.

The excitement on the opening day of the moot was palpable as each team of national champions first encountered their opposition. The participating students from all countries made a great impression on their judges.

We take the opportunity to record our thanks to Patricia McKellar of the University of London International Programmes, whose tireless work and enthusiasm made everything come together for this rewarding competition.

Thanks to Joanne Moss, Lecturer and Moot Director, for this report.

Senior Moot Finalists: Mark, Edward, Sam and Guy

The Senior Moot 2015 on 7th May was a resounding success showcasing the mooting skills of the four postgraduate Finalists, Edward Blakeney, Guy Olliff-Cooper, Mark Galtrey and Samuel Parsons.

Former Law Commissioner (and Moot Judge) Prof Jeremy Horder of the LSE, expert on the Bribery Act, had set a robust Problem on the subject for all students in the competition to grapple with. Fellow Finals Judge, Prof Peter Hungerford-Welch of the City Law School, presented the winner’s trophy to the new champion, Mark Galtrey. Samuel Parsons was the second place winner.

The event, the culmination of months of mooting across the City Law School, was generously hosted by Senior Moot sponsors Savills at their flagship London Headquarters.

Moot Director Joanne Moss said:

Moot in progress 2015 at Savills HQ

“We record our thanks to Savills for their great generosity and enthusiastic support for the Senior Moot 2015. This year has seen an unprecedented level of interest in this extraordinarily tough competition. This year the glory goes to Mark Galtrey but worthy opponents and champion mooters from many countries in the world had competed. We are a major international Law School and this is a landmark competition.”

This year’s prize pot was £3,000 with the champion receiving £1650. Moot Director Emily Allbon, Law School Faculty, members of Savills, invited distinguished legal guests and student guests were pleased to celebrate together.

Prof Peter Hungerford-Welch presenting the trophy to winner Mark Galtrey

Moot Directors Emily Allbon & Joanne Moss

Monday 16th March saw four City students battle it out in front of His Honour Judge Donald Cryan in the amazing surroundings of the UK Supreme Court.

Judge Cryan is a Circuit Judge and also sits as a judge of the High Court Family Division. He is a Bencher of the Inner Temple and Chair of the Institute of Family Law Arbitrators Advisory Committee.

This was the Final of the City Scholars Moot, open to all LLB and Graduate Entry LLB students at City - the problem revolved around obligations and variation of contracts. Essentially what happens when builders promise to complete work on time but fail to do so and only complete the job when more money offered to do the same work.

Appellants were undergraduate students, Jamie Popat (third year) and Abubakr Karimabadi (second year) and Respondents were first year students on the Graduate Entry programme, Kahroba Kojouri and Alex Battick.

Jamie, Abubakr, Judge Cryan, Jason and Kahroba

Judge Cryan permitted the appeal on both grounds, awarding modest damages of £750. He was impressed by all the mooters, making comments like this:

Of Jamie: "A calm, well-argued case - very impressed by the way you dealt with my questions.."

Of Kahroba: "Projected amiably - confident in face of testing questions. Admirable how unfazed you were in dealing with authorities outside of your bundle..."

Of Alex: "..Will make a good advocate. You responded well to questioning and were appropriately confident and clear in your responses"

Judge Cryan picked out the "impressively calm and mature presentation" of Abubakr, choosing him as the winner on the night, before all finalists joined him for a celebratory dinner at the RAC club on Pall Mall. Judge Cryan noted Abubakr's well structured argument and his use of authorities "citing just the right parts at appropriate length in response to the court's questions". Kahroba was the runner-up on the evening.

Kahroba and Jason getting in the zone!

Abubakr and Jamie preparing

On 25th June Charlotte Bellamy and Raphael Gray will be up against the Open University in the finals of the OUP/BPP National Mooting Competition. Charlotte and Raphael reached the finals after 4 rounds with other competing universities. Prior to the semi finals, City was represented by Charlotte and Raphael, along with John Platts-Mills and Emily Moore.

Then a week later, in early July, fellow GDL students Matt Henderson and Emma Rigarlsford will be competing at the University of Hertfordshire in the finals weekend of the UH/Blackstone's National Criminal Advocacy Competition.

Wish us luck!

A team from City University London took the finals trophy in this year's hotly contested OUP/BPP National Mooting Competition. Competing in four earlier rounds secured the place at the final on the 25th June 2015, where they faced the Open University, Queens University Belfast and the University of Greenwich. In this piece Charlotte, one of the winning duo tells us about the competition from beginning to end.

Charlotte and Raphael

We both found the OUP-BPP National Mooting Competition to be a great experience. Doing the competition throughout the year was an excellent way to get to grips with different topics – it’s a lot more fun than just sitting in the library (though there was a lot of that too!), as the objective of constructing the best possible case means you engage with the material in a purposeful way, and by the end you will know the subject inside out.

At times it was a challenge to balance the demands of the competition with our own work - we were preparing for the final round in the run up to exams, with the skeleton exchange in the midst of them! Luckily the final round was three days after our seventh and last exam, so we had plenty of time to prepare.

We had an engrossing selection of moot problems, which were often highly topical. These were written by barristers Ros Earis and Rory Clarke - interestingly Rory formed half of the team which won the OUP/BPP Moot for City back in 2010-11. Several were tort related – one highlight was our second round against Manchester Law School (in which Charlotte and John represented City) which involved a claim for psychiatric harm by a firewoman whose husband had died in a factory explosion – our judge, Geraldine McCool, had been involved as a solicitor in several of the cases we had cited in our skeleton (on Piper Alpha oil rig disaster), so she certainly kept us on our toes with her interventions.

A particular favourite has to be the semi-final against Plymouth, which centred on an obscure 18^th Century tort for the intentional infliction of psychiatric harm. This tort was recently brought back into the limelight in a Supreme Court case involving the concert pianist James Rhodes whose ex-wife was attempting to prevent his publication of a semi-autobiographical work. That case was going on at the same time as we were doing our moot, which gave the round a great sense of immediacy. It was also very exciting to be judged by legal correspondent and blogger Jack of Kent (aka David Allen Green) whose particular interests in freedom of speech and social media made for some very searching questions and interesting conversation over cake and wine afterwards.

The final round moot problem, on circumcision and female genital mutilation, was no doubt the most controversial, raising conceptually difficult issues on freedom of religion and the rights of the child, in what has always been a legal grey area. This was a real test in not getting caught up in one’s own personal opinions and keeping the focus on the legal arguments in support of our client’s case, defending the fictional Father Anderson of the Messianic religion from a possible conviction of inflicting bodily harm on a young boy he had circumcised.

Having done little prior mooting to the competition it was a great way to improve our advocacy skills ‘on the job’, and we were very lucky to have helpful and encouraging judges to give us constructive feedback along the way. We were delighted our efforts paid off and the outcome was an excellent way to end the GDL.

Thanks to Charlotte Bellamy, who triumphed at the OUP/BPP Moot Final with her teammate Raphael Gray. Earlier rounds of this competition were taken by alternating City pairs which included Emily Moore and John Platts-Mills. Find out more about the teams involved in the final via the Finals Programme, or read the news story from City University London.

Image credits: OUP and Josh Redman

Charlotte and Raph with Judge Charles Gratwicke of Chelmsford Crown Court