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Court Competition Judged by Local Solicitor
26/04/2016
Court competition judged by local solicitor
University of Wolverhampton Law students recently took part in a competition under the watchful eye of a real-life ‘judge’ - a member of the legal team from local solicitors Lanyon Bowdler.
The Client Interviewing Competition was organised by law student, Kelley Da Silva, one of the Vice Presidents of the Student Law Society. The aim of the competition was to increase employability skills for students studying law by offering them the chance to practise interviewing clients with legal expert, Lucy Speed, a solicitor with Lanyon Bowdler’s Court of Protection team, offering professional feedback on their performance.
Six first year law students took part in the competition in the University’s Courtroom, City Centre Campus, which covered a role-playing session revolving around a compensation claim scenario.
Kelley said: “Students already benefit from mock courtroom tests including mooting and debating, but we thought it would be really beneficial from an employability perspective to offer them some experience in interviewing clients.
“The competition was designed to focus on students’ interpersonal skills, how effective they are at fact finding and how they interact with people within a certain time constraint – all really good experience which gives them additional skills when applying for placements or employment.”
Lucy Speed said: “The students all performed to a very high standard and everyone was surprisingly confident. Role playing activity is crucial in helping students to develop their soft skills, including communicating with the client and undertaking proper fact-finding in order to offer the best service available.
“Winner of the Client Interviewing Competition, Marihah Akhtar, struck a good balance between bonding with the client and creating trust, as well as making sure she ascertained all the relevant facts in the time slot allocated to her.”
Margaret Walsh, Head of Department for Academic Law at the University of Wolverhampton, said: “At the University of Wolverhampton we offer students lots of opportunities to gain additional employability skills and the Client Interviewing Competition, devised by one of our students, is an excellent platform for potential lawyers and legal practitioners to practise honing their practical legal skills. Well done to both the organisers, Lanyon Bowdler for judging the competition and, most importantly, to all the students who took part in the event.”
Students: Marihah Akhtar (First place), Sannah Sharif (Second place), Faatima Kaneez, Elaine Robinson, Wai L. (Austin) Ng and Chidera Ugo-Okoye all took part in the competition, directed and organised by Kelley Da Silva with the assistance of Temujin Erdene-Ochir.
Anyone interested in studying law at the University of Wolverhampton should check the range of courses on the University of Wolverhampton’s Law School website:http://www.wlv.ac.uk/about-us/our-schools-and-institutes/faculty-of-social-sciences/university-of-wolverhampton-law-school/ or attend the next Open Day on 18th June 2016.
ENDS
For more information please contact the Media Relations Office on 01902 322003/322736
Date Issued: 28th April 2016
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