17 March 2006

Baroness Clark presides over mooting final

Photo opportunity: 6 pm, Tuesday March 21st,
Mooting Court Room (Room 4.08), Scrymgeour Building, Park Place (just up from Bonar Hall)

Baroness Clark of Calton, who was appointed a Senator of the College of Justice earlier this year, will return to familiar ground this week when she presides over the final of University of Dundee's mooting competition.

Baroness Clark studied law at Dundee and also lectured in jurisprudence at the University in the 1970s. In her time at Dundee she also helped establish the Dundee Legal Advice Centre with Professor Ian Willock, where University staff and students gave legal advice to the public.

In 1977 she became an advocate and in 1989 was appointed QC. She became the first woman to build up a successful practice as a senior counsel. Until January 2006, she held office as Advocate General for Scotland, a new law officer post created post devolution as a UK office of state. As the first Scottish law officer in the House of Commons for years, she managed to protect the office from political controversy, despite the new office being described as "a poisoned chalice". She was the first woman in the UK to be appointed as a law officer. She is also the only woman to be elected as MP in Edinburgh.

She will preside over and judge the final of the University's mooting competition, in which the finalists will be arguing the merits of particular issues surrounding a wrongful pregnancy.

Joanna Hunter and Stacey Manson (third year undergraduates) will moot against Michael Tombs and Glenn Donnelly (second year undergraduates) on the right of a mother to sue a hospital for negligence in respect of a faulty sterilisation operation which resulted in the birth of a disabled child.

Mooting is essentially a mock legal debate before a judge on a point or points of law.

"We are delighted that Baroness Clark is returning to Dundee, where she both studied and taught in the past," said David Cabrelli, lecturer in the Faculty of Law and Accountancy and the Department of Law's Mooting Coordinator. "It will be invaluable experience for our students to have a case they are debating heard by such a prominent figure in the legal world as Baroness Clark."

The competition is sponsored by LexisNexis Butterworths, which delivers comprehensive and authoritative legal, business, government and tax information worldwide as an industry leader.

For more information contact:

Roddy Isles
Head of Press
University of Dundee
Nethergate Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384910
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk