At The City Law School we place a great emphasis on mooting as a way of developing your legal skills whilst providing you with invaluable public speaking experience.
Don't know what mooting is? Mooting is essentially a mock trial where two sides argue a point of law in front of an acting judge, who based on the presentation by each sides, decides who wins.
Mooting is an important part of studying law at City, with City students seeing significant success in both national and international competitions.
What is a Moot?
A moot is a contest in which opposing pairs of counsel argue a fictitious legal appeal case in front of a 'judge' (this could be postgraduate student, a practitioner or a professional judge, depending on the stage in the competition). To win you do not necessarily have to win the legal case, but must make the best presentation of your legal arguments.
Why should I get involved?
Taking part in mooting is one of the more effective ways of acquiring the skills of a lawyer. It is useful for developing legal skills of analysis and interpretation, but also personal skills of argument and public speaking. Most importantly of all, it's great fun! Mooting is an essential activity for those considering a career at the Bar and desirable even for those looking to law firms.
What is mooting like at City?
Mooting is a key activity for the City law school community, with our students mooting extensively, both in the UK and beyond. Each year we have a number of City teams see success externally. The School recognises the value in students taking part in mooting competitions to enable them to develop their analytical ability, advocacy and research skills.
We run several internal moot competitions for our students:
- City Scholars Moot for LLB, GELLB and LLM students
- GDL Moot for GDL students
- Crown Office Moot for all students on academic programmes
- Senior Moot for all postgraduate students.
These internal moots give our students the chance to try out their new skills in a reasonably unthreatening environment, gaining valuable early round advice and guidance. We also run a programme of lectures and workshops early in the academic year to help build confidence amongst students new to law.
The Women in Law Society run a moot mentoring programme with the Director of Mooting, designed to give extra support to those who need it, in order to build their confidence in the discipline.
Recent successes in moot competitions
We have seen some tremendous performances from our students in recent years; here are a few highlights from the last five years:
- Wil Baylis-Allen and Kieran Bailey won the LawInSport SLAM Moot in 2022. Find out how this unfolded on Lawbore.
- 2nd in the International Refugee and Migration Law Court Competition 2022 in Ghent. Ciara fills us in on the fun in Belgium on Lawbore.
- Lots of City winners in the Kingsland Cup, hosted by the chambers of Francis Taylor Building (2015/16, 2016/17, 2018/19, 2020/21 and 2021/22). You can read about the most recent success via Beth Hermanszewska and Josh Neaman's piece on Lawbore.
- Chatura Saravanan and James Fowler won the Landmark Chambers Judicial Review Moot in 2020/21. Chatura recounts the experience on Lawbore.
- Thomas Beardsworth and Jacob Haddad won the Inner Temple Inter-Varsity Moot in 2020 - the third City duo to have done so in recent years. Find out more on Lawbore.
- The 2020 Human Rights Lawyers Association Judicial Review Moot featured not one, but two City teams in the final! Well done to James Lamming and Rosa Thomas - James tells all to Lawbore.
- In 2019, a City team (Piers Wingfield Digby, Thomas Mallen and Asfandyar Qureshi) won the Oxford International Intellectual Property Moot. Find out how it all happened with Piers on Lawbore.
- In 2018 Henrietta Boyle and Eno Elezi won both the Inner Temple Inter-Varsity and the Magna Carta Moot. Hear more from Eno on Lawbore.
- Margherita Cornaglia, Ben Lewy, Miguel Rodriguez-Correa Henderson, and Douglas Grant won the 2017 European Law Moot Court Competition at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. Margherita tells us all about the experience on Lawbore.
- Nick Wright and Mark Baldock won the Insurance Law Moot in 2017 - find out what was involved in this competition on Lawbore.
Related courses at City
Whatever your level of interest in mooting, City's courses can help you take one step closer to a career in law, develop specialisms that'll set you apart from the field or broaden your horizons with study in related subjects.
Want to know more?
Learnmore, part of our Lawbore portal, is an excellent place to learn about Mooting and to find resources to help you learn the skills needed for this. You'll discover video clips of mooting in action, hear tips and experiences from our expert mooters on everything from skeleton arguments to bundles, judicial interventions to modes of address.
Future Lawyer has lots of mooting news and articles too. Just choose Mooting as a category and you'll filter down to that specific content.
Emily Allbon is Moot Director with responsibility for the National Mooting Competitions as well as the internal City Scholars, GDL and Crown Office Moots.