7 March 2006

Dundee Students Win on (Moot) Points

University of Dundee fourth-year law students Judith Pillans and Nicola McLaren are this year’s winners of the Alexander Stone mooting competition, defeating a team from Strathclyde University in the final.

Mooting is essentially a mock legal debate before a judge on a point or points of law. The Alexander Stone competition takes place every year with the final staged in the Alexander Stone court room at Glasgow University.

Entry to the competition is open to all Universities in Scotland offering the LLB degree. Judith (22), from Dunfermline, and Nicola (21) from Glenrothes, defeated an Edinburgh University team in the semi-final to proceed to the final.

They were presented with the Alexander Stone trophy by Lord Hodge, one of the Senators of the College of Justice and a High Court judge in Scotland.

This is the sixth occasion on which Dundee University has won the trophy in the twenty years the competition has been running.

Meanwhile, another two Dundee students, Michael Duffy and Alan Finlay, fell just short of glory in the UK-wide mooting competition organised by the Independent Council of Law Reporting in the UK.

They defeated three different Universities to proceed to the semi-final of the competition against Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University.

The semi-final was held at the Honourable Society of Grays Inn in London and the judge presiding over Dundee's semi-final was Justice Towell, an English High Court Judge.

Unfortunaely, Michael and Alan were knocked out by Corpus Christi College, but Justice Towell was very impressed with their legal advocacy skills. Dundee were the last Scottish team left in the competition. The competition is based on English law, which is offered in the LLB course at Dundee.

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