NewsUniversity of Canterbury claims supreme law competitions title

Emulating the iconic Canterbury Crusaders, University of Canterbury law students claimed two of the four main competition prizes at the recent annual New Zealand Law Students' Association Conference and in so doing took out the inaugural Anderson Lloyd President’s Prize for the best performing university over the four competitions. 

Canterbury took out both the negotiation and witness examination prizes with LAWSOC president, Steve Jukes leading by example and winning the witness examination competition for the Cantabs.

The University of Canterbury made three of the four finals giving outgoing NZLSA President (University of Canterbury graduate and last year's Canterbury LAWSOC president), Dave Dewar great delight in presenting the inaugural President's Award to the Canterbury University team at the end of the four day long annual NZLSA conference held in Auckland last week.

“This year with an overall prize up for grabs, the four competitions comprising the Bell Gully Mooting competition, Buddle Findlay Negotiation competition, Minter Ellison Rudd Watts  Witness Examination competition and the Russell McVeagh  Client Interviewing competition took on a sterner parochial interest.  Not quite NPC or Super 14 type tension but there was certainly keen interest in how each university was progressing through the rounds,” Dave Dewar said.

The winning Canterbury contingent comprised David Turner and Christine Frampton in Mooting and Sarah Keast and Julia Whitehead, who were unfortunately pipped at the post in the client interview final. Jason Cooper and Timothy Haines took out the negotiation competition and Steve Jukes was the winner of the witness examination.

In presenting Steve Jukes with the inaugural President's Prize at the Conference Final Dinner in Auckland on Saturday night, Dave Dewar thanked Anderson Lloyd for the prize as well as the Firm's ongoing support of the NZLSA and the annual Conference.  "Law students around the country are uniquely fortunate to benefit from the incredible support of the legal profession" said Dewar. This enables events like the NZLSA Conference to foster the collegiality and goodwill of that profession among those who will soon be its newest members. 

"It would be appropriate to say that the law, like rugby, was the winner on the day...but clearly that honour has convincingly gone to Canterbury"