UQ law students win national mooting title

Students from The University of Queensland’s (UQ) Law School celebrated a victory over Sydney University in the grand final of the 2011 Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) Mooting Competition held in Sydney last week.

It was UQ’s second win in the national competition, which was adjudicated by the President of the Tribunal, the Honourable Justice Garry Downes AM, Senior Member Egon Fice and Senior Member Anne Britton.

The winning team members were Mitchell Beebe, Abraham O’Neil and Hannah McConnachie.

Three TC Beirne School of Law teams took part in the three-month long contest. All three UQ teams progressed to the quarter-final stage of the competition with two reaching the semi-finals.

The teams’ mooting coach, Senior Lecturer Dr Peter Billings, said the students are a credit to the Law School, and was particularly impressed by the time and effort they had invested in preparing for the competition.

“It’s a fantastic result for the students and for the Law School and I echo the sentiments of The Honourable Justice Downes who opined that the finalists were the best mooters he had ever judged at home or overseas,” said Dr Billings.

The annual AAT mooting competition provides an opportunity for students to learn more about administrative law and merits review, and enables them to develop their advocacy skills. It consists of a number of rounds at state, territory and national level.

Each moot takes the form of an abridged Tribunal hearing and features scenarios drawn from a variety of administrative law areas, including immigration and citizenship, social security, taxation, veterans’ affairs and workers’ compensation.

Dr Billings also thanked Peter Jensen, Member of the Social Security Appeals Tribunal; Dominique Mayo, Associate to The Honourable Justice James Douglas; and Margaret Carstairs, a former Senior Member of the AAT, along with Law School colleagues Dr Anthony Cassimatis and Professor John Devereux for their help in preparing the UQ students for the competition.

Media: Dr Peter Billings (07 3365 7176, p.billings@law.uq.edu.au) or Melissa Reynolds (07 3365 2523, m.reynolds@law.uq.edu.au).