Mooting Success

Earlier this month two Darwin High School Mooting teams traveled to the Gold Coast to compete in the National Senior School Mooting Competition.

By teacher Kira Goodsell

Each year Bond University’s Faculty of Law conducts a mooting competition involving student representatives from secondary schools around Australia. Mooting is the oral presentation of a legal issue or problem against an opposing counsel and before a judge. It is perhaps the closest experience that a student can have to appearing in court as counsel and solicitors. The competition is fierce and requires students to prepare their cases carefully, and also think and act on their feet in the heat of the movement in the courtroom – following correct courtroom procedures and using all of their advocacy skills.

Senior Counsel was Samuel Roussos and Diana Mukayeva, Junior Counsel was Tricia Ulep and Jessica Lines and Matilda Anderson and Tricia Ulep made up the Solictors. Both teams did an amazing job - the judges were impressed with the ‘exceptionally high standard’ of their moots and commented that they were ‘outstanding’ and ‘delightful’ to watch. One of the judges, who teaches Torts at Bond, said she was concerned that the moot problem might have been too complex – but her concerns were alleviated when she saw the sophistication of our students’ submissions.

We could not have done so well without the extraordinarily generous help and support from Tom Anderson and Matthew Littlejohn from William Forster Chambers, and George Roussos of Roussos Legal Advisory, who spent many hours rehearsing with the students and finalising their submissions. We are very proud of the whole team, who represented Darwin High School and the Northern Territory with such poise, talent and respect.

The preliminary rounds will continue until 17 May, after which we will hear which teams make it into the finals. Fingers crossed!