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The Ladies' College has won this year's Collas Crill Guernsey Moot – holding onto the trophy for another year.
Mathilda Litten and Evie Patterson from the Ladies' College and Josh Fallaize and Zaheer Anees from Elizabeth College went head to head in a fictitious negligence case involving a road traffic accident.
This is the 16th year the competition has run in Guernsey.
The Moot final took place on Tuesday 5 December in Court 3 of the Royal Courts of Guernsey and was presided over by a judging panel of the Deputy Bailiff, Jessica Roland, along with Collas Crill Training Principal and Partner Ben Havard and Partner Wayne Atkinson.
Strict official court formalities were followed for the duration of the Moot with the judging panel in full robes and toques and all the usual court etiquette adhered to, which meant that the students experienced the real life drama of a courtroom trial.
This extended to the support team of friends, family and teachers from both schools in the viewing gallery.
The four students all put forward their cases to the judges as counsel for their fictious clients – whose names sounded 'strangely' familiar – Eleven, Mike Wheeler, Dustin Henderson and Lucas Sinclair.
The students were marked on a number of factors including their court etiquette, persuasiveness, clarity, body language and time-keeping.
In her closing remarks the Deputy Bailiff commented that it was incredibly close, which is why it took the judging panel so long to come to a final conclusion. She said that all four students did 'brilliantly well' and should be extremely proud of themselves but the Ladies' College team just 'pipped it by a whisker'. She offered congratulations to both teams.
Ben Havard said: 'The Moot is a fully immersive experience for the students and the final is played out in the Royal Court just as a real life negligence case would. Everyone gets fully into character and it can be quite daunting. However all four students stepped up and did an amazing job, representing their clients in a very professional manner. The panel was very impressed with them all – we were back and forth a number of times before we came to our final judgement. Congratulations Mathilda and Evie and well done to Josh and Zaheer.'
Mathilda, Evie, Josh and Zaheer have come through three rounds of the annual competition to reach the hotly contested final.
73 sixth form students from Ladies' College, Elizabeth College, Blanchelande College and the Sixth Form Centre took part in this year's competition. The Ladies' College won the 2022 Moot.
The Moot involves students studying real-life legal case notes and applying them to a mock court situation. Participants are mentored and coached by Collas Crill paralegals and trainee solicitors throughout the competition and judged by some of the firm's partners during the mock trials.
Guernsey Managing Partner Christian Hay said: 'As a firm we are very proud of the Moot. It has grown and developed over the last 16 years and is an initiative that the whole firm gets behind. It has become a rite of passage for our paralegals and trainee solicitors to organise each year and this year was no different. A number of them, along with our associates and senior associates, took part in the Moot when they were at school and credit it with piquing their interest in a career in law. We are proud to be supporting the lawyers of the future by providing them with first-hand experience of the work that goes into bringing a case to court. Congratulations to Evie and Mathilda for winning this year's competition.'
Evie and Mathilda were presented with the Collas Crill Moot shield to take back to the Ladies' College, as well as individual prizes and trophies. Josh and Zaheer also received gifts from Collas Crill.
Caption (L-R): Evie Patterson, Matilda Litten, Wayne Atkinson (Collas Crill), Deputy Bailiff Jessica Roland, Ben Havard (Collas Crill), Josh Fallaize, Zaheer Anees
