Oxford Brookes students compete in the Brown Mosten International Client Consultation Competition
Friday, 27 April 2018
A team of Oxford Brookes Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) students represented England and Wales in the Brown Mosten International Client Consultation Competition (11– 14 April 2018).
Helena Goddard and Christopher Wells travelled to Maastricht
in the Netherlands to take part in a series of examined consultations,
competing against teams from all over the world. Helena and Christopher were
selected to represent England and Wales due to their victory in the National Client Interviewing Competition.
The first round saw the Brookes team drawn against Canada and
New Zealand, in a consultation focussed on the legality of the sale and resale
of a private jet. The second round
featured a particularly demanding client and the recovery of a large hotel bill
following the cancellation of a football match due to terrorism concerns.
Christopher and Helena performed particularly well in this
round, defeating the teams from Northern Ireland and Germany, and receiving
tremendously positive feedback from the judges. They were praised for the
quality of their professionalism, information discovery, and client handling
skills.
Whilst the Brookes team did not progress to the semi-finals,
it was clear that the final winners (Team USA) were worthy of the accolade, and
the Brookes team enjoyed watching them perform in the final.
The
Law Faculty at the University of Maastricht were generous and warm hosts,
putting on food and drinks each evening including a boat cruise down the river
Meuse combined with pancakes, and a sumptuous closing dinner. They also
assigned each team a local buddy who acted as a city guide, translator, and
cultural advisor.
Reflecting
on the week Christopher said: “Taking
part in this competition was an immensely valuable experience. Rubbing
shoulders with some of the world’s finest legal talent sharpened a whole range
of skills that will be vital in practice, and working alongside 22 other
nationalities gave me a real appreciation for the fundamentals of communicating
law cross-culturally. It was an honour to represent England and Wales, and I’m
thankful for the support of Graham Robson. It was also an honour to represent
Oxford Brookes internationally, and I’m thankful to my own law school for their
support.”
Helena
added: “We had a great time in
Maastricht. Professionally I learned to pay more attention to time, we ran over
on one of our interviews losing lots of points, which meant we failed to
qualify for the semi-finals. I also came to understand how well we had been
coached - comparing and reflecting on our performance against the other teams I
was able to see that we were particularly strong on translating legal issues
into practical options. Personally, I really enjoyed meeting people from other
countries, especially the USA, Canada, Ghana, Nigeria and Romania.”
The Brown
Mosten International Client Consultation Competition is an annual competition held for the winners of
national competitions across the world. Students
from the Oxford Brookes Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) programme regularly compete for the honour of
representing England and Wales in Client Interviewing competitions, under the
coaching of Principal Law lecturer Marc Howe.