Mooting Grand Final – battle of the legal minds

USQ and Turner Freeman mooting competition winners in Toowoomba

(L to R) James Wyche, Harry Schatz and Darren Whitelegg (Photo courtesy USQ Photography)

Queensland’s brightest minds battled it out at this year’s USQ Secondary Schools Moot Competition.

Our Toowoomba office was again proud to sponsor this year’s Grand Final at the USQ Toowoomba campus, for the third year in a row. The competition was part of the University’s annual Open Day.

What is mooting?

A moot is a simulated appeal on an arguable point of law. Typically, it involves the selection of a real life judicial decision or hypothetical problem that raises legal points that are arguable on both sides – ‘moot points’.

This year the judges included Justice Susan Brown from the Supreme Court of Queensland, Judge Alexander Horneman-Wren from the District Court of Queensland and Professor Reid Mortensen, Head of USQ’s School of Law and Justice.

The moot final ran as a fictitious criminal appeal case whereby students allocated the role of Appellant Counsel acting for the defence or Respondent Counsel acting for the Crown.

The team scoring the most points on legal knowledge and advocacy skills won a full year’s scholarship, worth almost $11,000 to study law at USQ and be awarded the perpetual trophy.

The two finalist teams this year were Toowoomba Grammar School and Hillbrook Anglican School. Both teams have been successful through four preliminary moots before reaching the final.

Both teams performed exceptionally well, prepared and presented their arguments to the moot judges effectively and their knowledge of law was outstanding. However there could only be one winner.

Congratulations to Toowoomba Grammar School mooting team comprising of James Wyche and Harry Schatz for winning this year’s grand final. Each advocate from the winning team received a full-year scholarship to study law at USQ as well as the Turner Freeman Lawyers Prize. The runner-up team each received a half-year law scholarship.

Well done to all the teams!

Turner Freeman Lawyers Toowoomba office

Turner Freeman Lawyers Toowoomba office is conveniently located at:

1-3 Russell Street, Toowoomba.

For more information on the services offered at our Toowoomba office, contact the office on (07) 4616 8333 or via online.

Get to know our Toowoomba branch manager

Darren Whitelegg is a Toowoomba local, graduated from the University of Southern Queensland with a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Business and since joining Turner Freeman Lawyers in 2012, Darren has worked exclusively in the area of personal injury law.

Darren is committed to achieving the best possible outcomes for his clients and providing straightforward legal advice.

Get in touch with Darren on 07 4616 8302.