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.