A team of four Bond Law students have returned to campus exhausted but elated from their marathon mooting experience against top Law students from across the globe at the annual Willem C. Vis (East) International Commercial Arbitration Moot in Hong Kong.
Jeremy Butcher, second year Law student was named first runner-up in the Best Oralist category (Neil Kaplan Award), one of four major prizes on offer at the International Moot, which aims to provide educational experiences and training for tomorrow's legal leaders.
The Bond University team, comprising Jeremy Butcher, Amy Jackson, Ben Hartsuyker and Samuel Cross, competed against 114 University teams from 30+ countries in the week-long event, including Harvard, Stanford, University College London, Singapore Management University, National University of Singapore and Yale.
Assistant Professor Louise Parsons who was the Faculty coach said she was proud of the team and their performance.
“Although the team was knocked out in the elimination round, there is still much to celebrate,” Louise said.
"The competition is growing and getting tougher year-on-year. The standard of English and the standard of arguments of the Asian teams is of an incredibly high quality.
“This year’s winner of the oral rounds was the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who with a team of 12 plus four student coaches, proved to be an unbeatable opponent.
“The fact Jeremy was named first runner up for Best Oralist is a phenomenal achievement, as the award is based on cumulative scores of moots over the week, in front of an array of arbitrators from different jurisdictions.
“Over the past six months everyone has worked incredibly hard, and demonstrated one of the best team dynamics I have seen on moot teams.
“Our team members were also excellent ambassadors for Bond and made strong connections with arbitrators and other teams from across Australia and the world.
Jeremy Butcher said one of the key event highlights for the Bond team was being able to moot against Harvard in front of a room packed with eager spectators from dozens of other countries.
“We knew they were there to watch Harvard and I doubt most of the spectators had ever heard of Bond,” Jeremy said.
“Despite this, we delivered our best oral performance of the competition, and the number of compliments we received as a result of that moot was unbelievable.
“While everyone had been there to see what Harvard were up to, and to see what arguments they were running, in the end they were incredibly impressed with our presentation and our arguments.
“It was such an achievement to be able to surprise everyone who watched that moot, and really made me value the education I am receiving at Bond.
“I realised what I am learning is the art of communication and a set of skills that enables me to confidently compete against the best law students in the world.”