Matthew Sellwood and Daniele Selmi, the team from Oxford Brookes University, were presented last night with the Silver Mace and £1,000 each, as winners of this year’s ESU – Essex Court Chambers National Mooting Competition. It is the first time that Oxford Brookes University has won the competition which has been running for 41 years, is administered by the ESU, sponsored by Essex Court Chambers and supported by Legal Week as media partners.
The exciting evening final saw Oxford Brookes take on Lucy Limbrey and Quinlan Windle from Queen Mary, University of London, to argue the fictitious legal appeal case, “The Merchant of Tennis Ltd v Mr Stephen Mortar (a bankrupt)”. The two runners up were presented with “The Scarman Shield” and £750 each.
The event was held in the President’s Court of the Royal Courts of Justice and was judged this year by a panel chaired by the Hon Mr Justice Eder. Paul Stanley QC, Essex Court Chambers and Professor Nick Grief, Director of Legal Studies at the University of Kent and a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, joined Sir Bernard in assessing the “impressive performances” of the four finalists.
Oxford Brookes emerged the winners in the competition, which is run on a simple knock-out basis of 64 teams. The semi-finals, which were held on the same day as the final, saw teams from the University of Strathclyde and the University of Leicester go out of the competition but with prizes of £250 each. Further cash prizes, generously donated by Essex Court Chambers, were presented to the finalists’ educational establishments: £1,000 to Oxfords Brookes and £500 to Queen Mary. All finalists were also offered a mini-pupillage at Essex Court Chambers.
For the first time this year, the winners, Matthew Sellwood and Daniele Selmi, will be invited to take on the 2012 winners of the Singapore mooting competition, Drew & Napier’s Pardeep Singh Khosa and Mahesh Rai. The Singapore event was organised by Essex Court Chambers and the English-Speaking Union (ESU) and supported by the Singapore Academy of Law.
Also a first for this year was the involvement of a courtroom artist who captured the scene in Court 33 in real time.
Registration for next year’s mooting competition will be open at www.esu.org/mooting at the beginning of the academic year.